Stephanie Gilmore and Gabriel Medina, ten world titles between em. | Photo: @badboyryry_

Wild scenes at Grajagan as Quiksilver Pro, dogged by poor swell forecast, descends into jungle bacchanal, “Is there any booze left in camp?”

"Kolohe Andino looking as worn as a well-thumbed volume filled with illustrated examples of human sex organ deformities."

Yesterday, surf fans rounded on the World Surf League following a poor swell and wind forecast from forecast partner Surfline and two days of “on-hold” announcements. 

“Let’s drop the wall of positive @wsl just actually tell us when it’s going to be on,” wrote craigysurf86 in response to the latest on-hold post, summing up what was a pretty universal sentiment before the comments were hidden. “This ‘On hold’ thing is actually way more frustrating especially since your entire fan base knows the swell happened before and will happen after the waiting period.”

Now, following a series of Instagram stories and various TikToks showing the world’s best surfers grunting and groaning and cavorting to retro dance tracks, in the case below, PNAU’s Embrace and 50 Cents’ In Da Club, surf fans, displaying a wild puritanical streak, have vented on the WSL’s socials. 

 

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“Not sure why they are barely updating us and then just showing partying on the story like damn take about giving back to the surf community.”

“Everyone too hungover to surf later this afternoon when the wind swings offshore ?Forecast is looking worse each day. Looks like you’ll be running heats in 2ft G Land.”

“Is there any booze left in camp?” 

I found the vision of good times heartening, Stephanie Gilmore and Gabriel Medina moving with precise and vigorous grace, Filipe Toledo weightless with joy at the spectre of a finals day in small waves and Kolohe Andino looking as worn as a well-thumbed volume filled with illustrated examples of human sex organ deformities.

 

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Good times, although not quite on the level as the night in the 1990’s when Rob Bain, Barton Lynch and Gary Elkerton disappeared into the jungle, reappearing in the morning naked and carrying bamboo spears.

 


Down from here.
Down from here.

Question: Does the shorter waiting period negate the glorious benefits of fewer surfers on the WSL’s Championship Tour?

Also sunglass help, please.

I am currently sitting in Munich’s functional flughafen, in transit, and needing to purchase sunglasses. The very fine pair I had became lost over the weekend’s ballet rehearsal leaving my eyes squinty and tired but I don’t want Maui Jim and and I don’t want Police so I am going to have to search, quickly, and impulse sunglass buys are always regretted later.

Speaking of, I wonder if the World Surf League is, now, regretting their decision to cut the waiting period along with the field after Margaret River? The story developing around the exciting return of G-Land is becoming, more and more, WSL incompetence. Oh, the League cannot nor should not be blamed for the surf quality but they can and should be blamed for both timing of the event and winnowing the window.

Derek Rielly just wrote, “With waves that will be lucky to crest a man’s eyebrows predicted for the next week, and an eight-hour cycle of the event being “on hold”, come back in three hours etc, surf fans are becoming a little frustrated.”

Fans of professional surfing lashing out etc. I am certain a bunker mentality is taking hold, within WSL brass, maybe taking hold in an adjacent room to Tyler Wright’s Covid quarantine quarters. Everyone, haters, grumpy locals, derelicts always wanting more etc. and the League may be right within that bunker but the distinct hatred growing for its core audience doesn’t bode wonderfully.

Sunglasses.

Ray-Bans?

Prada?

Ugh.


Surf fans round on WSL as partner forecaster predicts three-foot waves for remaining waiting period at G-Land and world champ Tyler Wright returns positive COVID swab, “Let’s drop this wall of positive noise WSL!”

"Your entire fan base knows the swell happened before and will happen after the waiting period."

However you slice it, it’s still early season in Indonesia.

Late May is pretty good, and is a hell of a lot better than April, but it ain’t mid-July when the big souths bring a million glistening waves.

And Grajagan isn’t the sorta joint that loves leftovers despite what you might’ve heard.

What was perfect in 1972 when Americans Bill Boyum and Bob Laverty rode motorcycles overland to chase a lefthander on the edge of jungle in south-east Java Bob had seen from an airliner, shows its flaws in the cold light of 2022 when man can manufacture his own perfection, especially without the push of a clean groundswell.

With waves that will be lucky to crest a man’s eyebrows predicted for the next week, and an eight-hour cycle of the event being “on hold”, come back in three hours etc, surf fans are becoming a little frustrated.

“Let’s drop the wall of positive @wsl just actually tell us when it’s going to be on,” writes craigysurf86 in response to the latest on-hold post, summing up what was a pretty universal sentiment before the comments were deleted or hidden. “This ‘On hold’ thing is actually way more frustrating especially since your entire fan base knows the swell happened before and will happen after the waiting period. So unless your next announcement is we’ve extended the waiting period see you all in the 12th or well we missed the swell so we’re just gong to do the best we can. Just stop posting till you decide to run.”

Now, if that waiting could stretch out to the following Wednesday, well, ooowee, six-feet plus.

Meanwhile, world champ Tyler Wright has tested poz for COVID-19 and will ride out most of the waiting period in isolation.

“Based on the league’s protocols, Wright is expected to be cleared for competition by Saturday, June 4, 2022. The health and wellness of athletes, staff, fans, and the local communities where we compete, remains the WSL’s top priority.”


"Don't surf."
"Don't surf."

VALs, Wavestormers given stark warning as critical lifeguard shortage hits U.S. beaches ahead of summer: “It’s probably best to follow the advice ‘if you don’t surf, don’t start!'”

Smart.

Memorial weekend is the official start of summer in the United States what with BBQs and its fireworks displays and its U.S. Open of Surfing and its good old timey riotous fun but this summer dire warnings are being given to those who would like to swim or learn to surf. Oh no it has nothing to do with rip-roaring inflation but rather a troubling lifeguard shortage affecting sea to shining sea.

Per reporting from CNN:

Dwindling interest in lifeguarding is not a new problem, according to some experts, but was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, when many pools and training sessions were shuttered and many of the young applicants who would normally apply are now choosing retail or restaurant jobs that offer higher pay. Having unmanned pools can be dangerous or even deadly, Fisher said.

But leaders in the field say this moment also offers an important opportunity to reshape the narrative around the job: how it’s perceived by the public, who can do it, how much it pays and why it is so important.

“We’ve got to keep up pay rates, we’ve got to keep up motivating these lifesavers and making sure that everybody understands that at the end of the day, there is no better job than being a sort of lifesaver,” Tom Gill, vice president of the United States Lifesaving Association, a nonprofit representing beach lifeguards and open water rescuers.

And let’s hope our brave guards get their pay raises but let’s also not stress the safety net, as it were. Vulnerable adult learners and Wavestorms should likely stay on the sand for the foreseeable future. Spike ball, I hear, is very fun and I’ve played a fair deal of smash ball, which I can whole-heartedly recommend. Great for the entire family.

Enjoy!


Brewer and Lopez.

Wildly influential Hawaiian shaper Dick Brewer dead at eighty-five, “He was the guru, the man on the mountain, the shaper everybody knelt down before. Figuratively, mostly, but maybe literally too!”

“Incredible guns, just Sabrejet-level equipment for North Shore surfers in the ’60s and ’70s.”

A couple of months back came news from Princeville, Kauai, that Dick Brewer, the eighty-five-year-old designer and shaper of “incredible North Shore guns” was facing his last days on earth.

His wife posted, “My baby will not be in this world much longer. He could use all the love and support he can get right now.”

Brewer had been sick as hell, some sorta blood cancer or bone marrow disease, and there were reports suggesting he was refusing treatments but it was “an insurance issue that’s putting them in a tight spot.”

News, now, that Brewer died at his Princeville home today.

“He was the guru, the man on the mountain, the shaper everybody knelt down before. Figuratively, mostly, but I think maybe literally too!” says surf historian Matt Warshaw. “Incredible guns, just Sabrejet-level equipment for North Shore surfers in the ’60s and ’70s.”

Brewer was born in 1936, a few miles west of Lake Superior in Minnesota, to a family of Quakers. At three, his family moved to Long Beach, California, where daddy Charles got a job working on the landing gear of DC-3s as the American war machine slowly groaned to life.

Dick started surfing in 1952, picked up a planer seven years later, and in 1960 moved to the North Shore where he developed a strong rep at big Waimea and Sunset.

A year later he set up a surf shop in Haleiwa and the rest, as they say, is a beautiful and wild history.

“Apart from the boards being gold-standard, and apart from being our first and last and greatest shaping guru,” says Warshaw, “Brewer’s contribution was to look outside of surfing. His engineering background, everything he knew about cars, about machining, about speed and drive and torque—he brought all of that to bear in the shaping room. Lucky for our sport, he wasn’t born and raised on the beach. He loved surfing best of all, but he was smart enough to look beyond surfing. To our great benefit.”

Read the definitive Dick Brewer story, written by Drew Kampion, here.