And WSL CEO accused of turning child surfers into monsters as they emulate heroes storming judging towers!

During the taping of an episode of Ain’t That Swell at Torquay during the Bells Beach event two months back, Swellians welcomed WSL CEO Erik Logan with a volley of boos.

It’s to the man’s credit he faced the hostile crowd and won ‘em over by shutting down Mick Fanning, who’d joined the pile-on by telling Logan he wasn’t into the mid-tour cut, with the withering coup de grâce, “I think Barron (Mamiya) would disagree with that, he seems to be doing fine.”

Now, Logan, an attractive fifty-ish man who adopted the “sexy cocaine cowboy” look ten months ago to much critical acclaim, as well as imitation, has faced his toughest critics yet, the podcasting duo of Jimmy Miles and Cahill Bell Warren.

On the latest episode of their Lipped podcast, Miles and Bell Warren walk Logan into corners hither and yon.

Bell Warren complains of children attacking judge in junior events because Logan let Italo get away with it and, well, what else are they gonna do but emulate their heroes? 

“I’m going to have more people storming tents because of you celebrating it!” 

The combativeness continues.

Miles is opposed to the idea of running Finals Day at Lowers for a second year running, positing it’s about clicks rather than crowning a worthy world champion.

Bell Warren talks of surfers doing “cutbacks to win a world title” and of being “put to sleep” by the latest event in Brazil. 

Logan fares well in the exchanges until this wild admission, 

“No one is walking into the final five. The five surfers who make it are tested time and time and time again. We’re sitting here, watching Saquarema right now and for you it might’ve put you to sleep, but the twenty thousand fans on the beach didn’t have a problem with it…”

Pause.

“Look, to be fair, (people say), hey, why don’t you just do it at Pipe? If I put it at Pipe, I can’t do the women there. They just haven’t had enough time.”

Moana Jones Wong, you listening? 

And always travels with a knife! Who knew?

The 11-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater, shunned by the New York Times yesterday in its list of greatest-ever athletes still competing in their harvest years, has made a startling revelation in a sprawling interview to celebrate his latest collaboration with Breitling watches.

“Watches are important for me because of what I do,” says Slater. “We surf 30 minute heats generally, though I can surf up to almost 50 minutes at a time.”

Fifty minutes! Gruelling. 

Anyway, the Champ has collabed on the limited edition (1000 of em made) Superocean Automatic 42 Kelly Slater which features a vivid orange face and costs US$4900.

“…we started talking about watch designs, and I said, ‘Oh my dad when I was a kid had this orange-faced dive watch.’ One day for some reason after having the watch for 20 years he decided to buy a different band for it. And we went surfing the next day and it fell off his wrist and he lost it. He went diving a few days later to look for it and couldn’t find it. So it was a really important thing in his life. I forget if his dad gave it to him or something, but it was a heartbreaker for my dad. So the orange colorway on this watch is definitely inspired by that as an homage to my father. “ 

Slater also reveals he travels armed, “I always have a knife”, packs a head lamp in case of emergency and says he’s gonna move hell and high-water to get into the US Olympic Team for the 2024 Paris Games, the surfing being held at Teahupoo. 

“I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was on my mind. Because the location of the next Olympics is a spot I’ve probably had my first or second best results in my career — it’s in Teahupo’o in Tahiti. France is hosting the Olympics and they’ve chosen to take it down to Teahupo’o — I’ve won that contest like six or seven times. It would be really great to try to make that team. They only took two people from each country in the last Olympics, and they’re going to take three from a couple this time — including the U.S. I honestly think the qualification is potentially harder for me than winning the Olympics. If I can get in there I think I’d have a shot at winning the Olympics in 2024. And I’d be 52, so I’d be one of the oldest Olympians in that game.”

The interview wraps with an insight into Slater’s considerable environmental bona fides.  

“When I got into eating healthy in my early 20s, that’s kind of in line with the health of the planet. When Twitter came out, I got in this algorithm where I started following a bunch of people who were raising awareness for environmental issues, and I started to learn a lot more about that — especially in regards to clothing. I didn’t know the impacts of the clothing and fashion industries on the problems in the environment. You know rivers being dyed blue or red because of dye being used in clothing and the effects that has on the world. The desert in Chile…they’re just literally dumping untold numbers or acres of used fabrics and textiles from the clothing industry. There’s a big wasteland that they’re basically just dumping in the desert. It’s really wild to see. And most of the people who work in the fast fashion industry around the world and in factories, they’re not well taken care of, there’s not very good safety measures, they don’t have good working conditions, often times they can’t use the bathroom for like the whole day. It’s wild when you hear these stories. It wasn’t until I started following some accounts on Twitter back in 2008 or ’09 that it started to hit home for me. The thing that’s made me the most money in my career has been the clothing industry and I didn’t know much about it so I decided to start getting more involved. I started a company when I was still surfing for Quiksilver. We started a company called VSTR, and then when my time at Quiksilver finished I had already decided about 6-12 months prior that I would start my own brand, which was Outerknown. I started to kind of formulate behind the scenes what I wanted it to be, and social compliance was really number one, even ahead of environmentalism, though they’re kind of hand in hand for me.”

Inspiring. 

“Now I’m speaking my mind and the truth WSL… I think Kelly (Slater) and WSL burned the tape!”

The Hawaiian surfer Johnny Boy Gomes, often cited as the best power surfer on the eighties and nineties, has slammed the WSL for ignoring his wild 1997 Pipeline Masters win in a recent best-of list.

“I’ve been keeping this in for a long time,” writes Gomes, “bcus I wanted to be cool and humble for my O’hana but now, I’m speaking my mind and the truth WSL. I can’t believe I’m the first guy in surfing history to make it from the trials to win it and still WSL didn’t even pick it as their top past Pipeline Masters winners list. We know the truth. I think Kelly (Slater) and WSL burned the ’97 Pipeline Masters tape… I’ve Neva Ask For Anything From Anyone but Let’s Do This wsl! Pipeline Heritage Heat Against Anyone or Maybe Even A Wildcard, Next Year.”

Gomes, who is fifty-seven and a grandfather, is described by Matt Warshaw as a man of “near-superhuman strength” and riding “in a tightly clenched weightlifter’s squat, with a ramrod straight back, leveraging his board into one massive turn after the other, and often riding deep inside the tube.”

In 1999, Gomes won fifty gees in the Backdoor Shootout, the biggest winner’s cheque in surfing at that point, and placed third in the Eddie that same year.