Long part of the bullish WSL
growth push, since it was acquired for free by
billionaire Dirk Ziff, has been converting those who don’t surf but
fall in love with the “sport” as passive consumers much like the
UFC has non-combat fans and football has non-brain damaged ones.
Transitioning into “real,” as it were, or at the very least
“legitimate.”
I am certain both China and India have multiple of these wonders
who spend fourteen to sixteen hours a day locked in small cubicles
loving professional competitive surfing deeply but for anything to
really pop it has to pop in the great United States of America.
Even diminished, the land of the free, home of the brave, still
reigns pop supreme.
And so I will drive from Cardiff by the Sea to Albuquerque, New
Mexico, to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Memphis, Tennessee before
ending in Nashville. My steed, a 2012 Volkswagen Jetta Wagon in
black, that must be delivered to my ultra-talented soccer playing
daughter at Vanderbilt.
Leaving in hours.
What will I find in bars and roadside hotels along the way? Gas
stations and rest stops?
Graceland?
That, friends, will be the story of our time.
Of professional competitive surfing’s true rise or, as the case
may be, Logan’s lies.
More as the story develops.
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Surfer shares horrifying story of being
brutally savaged in Hawaii lineup by crazed pig: “It had a bloody
face as if it had been attacked, the longest snout, with tusks like
a baby mastodon!”
By Chas Smith
"There was a giant bite mark. That could have been
me."
Any surfer who has traveled to the Hawaiian Island
chain knows that it is paradisiacal but also knows a dark
menace lurks beneath the plumeria and hibiscus flowers. Violently
spilled açaí bowls. But also wild pigs. Nasty things that defecate
in water sources, root around for goodness only knows what and
terrify the unsuspecting.
Usually, this terror occurs on terra firma with the beasties
snorting and glaring. They are not afraid of humankind and so
gladly charge, tusks bloody and gross.
One day in December 2021, I drove out at dawn to Mokulē’ia
beach on Oahu’s north shore. I picked a spot to surf and went down
to the shore with a friend. It was a beautiful morning. The sun was
out and the waves no bigger than two feet. We paddled out; he went
right and I turned left. The nearest people were 200 metres
away.
I began surfing the waves, then saw something floating
towards me. I wondered if it was a seal, but it looked stiff.
Suddenly, it lifted its head out of the water. I was eye to eye
with a wild boar, only 1.5 metres from me. It was shocked – and so
was I. It had a bloody face as if it had been attacked, the longest
snout, with tusks like a baby mastodon, and a look of desperation.
I was afraid and, more than that, surprised. What was it doing
here?
It started piggy-paddling towards me with all its might. I
turned to paddle away, but its face was at my foot. I got off my
board and placed it between us as a safety barrier. The pig pulled
itself up and took a chunk out of the board with its teeth. I swam
underwater in the other direction, and when I surfaced 3 metres
away I realised it had broken through the fibreglass casing of the
board and crunched through the foam. There was a giant bite mark.
That could have been me.
Seiple, thankfully, made a getaway but if she hadn’t I’m certain
the most feared pig hunter on the island would have been called in
to TCB.
Yours truly.
Or don’t you remember how I was an integral part of a crack team
that slayed a terror up Kualoa Ranch way.
Imminent collapse of global economies
creates golden market for surfboard collectors, “The flotillas of
big-name machine shapes purchased in frenzy during the height of
the boom are now being jettisoned as the proles look to tighten
their belts and ride the bust!”
By surf ads
There’s never been more surfers, sure. But there’s
also never been more surfboards. Stretching as far as the landfill
can see.
Am I the only one who finds the notion of a recession
romantic?
Everyone back to square one. On equal footing. Starting from
scratch.
Legions of once-pencil necked corporate types suddenly freed of
their neoliberal masters. Lounging around all day, eating salted
pork and sauteed bike tyres. Repairing old jalopies between
mid-morning surfs and afternoon moonshine benders.
Kids running amongst golden fields of grass, dirt-faced but
happy, patched-up overalls hanging languidly from their sun-kissed
shoulders.
While all those fat-cat speculators and entrepreneurs sit
weeping in their abandoned co-operative work spaces, the
“elaborate” and “innovative’” business models that served to only
further exploit the working class finally laying in ruin.
The culture that exalted home ownership as a model for
accumulation of capital. Bunnings and Home Depot our new cathedrals
for weekend worship. Casualised workforces. Laissez-faire economics.
The LinkedIn cult of the corporate. “Bring more of yourself to
work” so work can bring more of itself to you.
All collapsing in on itself like a cursed dwarf star.
Sure, I jest. I know there’s clear links between economic
downturns and rates of suicide, family breakdown, crime, drug use
etc
And it’s usually the working class man that feels the pinch the
most.
But the socialist in me does want to see this smoke and mirrors
capitalist shitshow we’ve laboured under for the last fifty years
falter just a little more.
Even a slight touch on the breaks of unlimited economic growth.
Maybe take into consideration factors other than just GDP when
looking at a nation’s wealth. Push a few of us back into the warm,
egalitarian embrace of market regulation and big government.
Economic rationalism isn’t, as they say.
At the very least, the threat of recession makes a great market
for secondhand surfboards. Jeez there’s been some steals of
late.
There’s never been more surfers, sure. But there’s also never
been more surfboards. Stretching as far as the landfill can
see.
The flotillas of big-name machine shapes purchased in frenzy
during the height of the boom are now being jettisoned as the
proles look to tighten their belts and ride the bust.
The result? It’s a buyer’s market, just like that greasy real
estate agent will tell you.
There’s almost no argument now for buying new boards. Check out
your Gumtrees, Craigs Lists, FB marketplaces near even the mildest
concentrations of surf populations and there’s a plethora of deals
to be had.
Unless you’re spending good money to buy a handshape from a
guru, you gotta go secondhand. It’s an ethical as well as economic
imperative.
Me, I’ve long been a fan of used goods. But the pendulum has
swung so far now in my favour that even I can’t believe some of the
scores that present themselves. Especially for those underground
gems that might not attract the SEO hits of a JS, a Hayden, a
Sharpeye.
Some minor damage and dirtiness, the ad said. But otherwise good
to go.
What’s crazier is the asking price on FB marketplace was even
lower than what I ended up paying for it. I saw it pop up on a
weekend scroll for $10.
Ten buckeroos. About the same as a pie and Coke at the servo. A
few litres of diesel. One schooner at a fancy inner city bar, if
you’re lucky.
I assume it must be a typo. Send a DM.
Hey, definitely interested in the McCabe. So it’s $10?
A quick response. Yes it is. Somebody else has already put a
hold on it though.
I’ll give you $20.
Done. It’s yours.
Pick it up the next day. A younger girl living behind a
commission flat out the back of town. Dogs barking in the driveway.
Early model Holden Commodore rusting out front.
She’s immediately apologetic, like I’m doing her a favour.
“Thank you so much for taking it. I’m so sorry it’s dirty,” she
says, pointing to the thin layer of grime on the deck. “It’s just
been lying around here forever, and well, I needed the cash.”
“That is no problem at all,” I say as I slide it into the boot.
“The pleasure is all mine.”
A quick clean up with some turps and a wax comb. Your usual
compressions. The only real damage is a thumbnail sized hole in the
bottom of the deck. In keeping with the aesthetic I plug it up with
the old wax I accumulated from stripping it.
It’s a pulled-in square tail. Wide point forward. Subtle mass of
foam under the chest but the rails are foiled nicely. Deep double
concave out through the tail. Set of as-new Shapers fins (FCS1)
with it.
Some weird spray paint art on the front which adds to the
overall vibe.
Can feel the life force still inside it under the arm.
First surf down at Manly on one of those wicked SE mega swells
we’ve had here of late. Four-to-five-foot with a few bigger ones.
Some absolute drainpipes when they’re hitting the bank right.
It’s a board that tells you how it wants to be ridden from the
get go. A few missteps when I try to pivot too much on the tail.
Almost like a rounded pin masquerading as a square.
But quickly get a good feel. And it can find a tube. Almost
feels like it’s on autopilot when you slide up and under the
lip.
Next couple of surfs on a three-foot inside rip bowl back out
the front. Not as responsive a turner as your modern day
performance thruster but jeez it’s got some drive. Loves being put
on rail. Can’t wait to get it on some of the local reef breaks once
we get a run of clean swell.
What else would you expect from a McCabe?
I think about that girl. Going to all the effort of putting the
board up and dealing with degenerates like me for a measly $10.
Or twenty in the end.
Still.
Mark Rabbidge rail channel fish 6’4 x 21 x 2 ½:
$50
Another one where I had to double take at the price. We all know
Mark Rabbidge as the shaper responsible for Tom Curren’s first go
at J-Bay, widely regarded as one of the finest waves ever
surfed.
Mark’s been at the forefront of board design for decades
now.
So to see one of his shapes up in relatively ok nick for such a
price was nuts.
It wasn’t advertised as a Mark Rabbidge, mind you. Just “old
fish” or something similarly nondescript.
Turns out the guy selling lives only two hundred yards down the
road from me. I’ve seen him in the water before and am confident he
didn’t understand the gravity of the design he was holding under
his arm.
Deep rail channels, you might even call them edges, run through
the middle third of the board. They’re not belly channels. But
they’re also not like a traditional Greenough edge which follows
the curve of the rail.
The outline itself is like one of those big boy Aipa stingers.
Fuller again through the nose. Plus it’s got one of them flame
sprays. Ya can’t go wrong.
I messaged Mark about the board on Instagram. He remembers it,
fondly.
“I see some shapers doing different styles of channels now but
no one does them straight like that. I have made keel versions,
four fins, twins – they all work. I started doing them back in the
early ‘90s as handles for a surfer doing the Quik air shows and
they helped with breakage as well – they put more strength in the
rails. When he surfed it he said it pumped up speed so fast. I made
them for some other team guys and they all said the same. Works
best in short, wide planeshapes, I think it cancels out the bottom
and plane shape curves.”
To be honest, me surfing and reviewing this board feels a little
like somebody using a Stradivarius to hammer nails. A gross misuse
of craftsmanship.
I’m also riding it as a thruster when I really feel like it
should be a twin with trailer. But who the fuck still has FCS 1
twins nowadays?
Damn thing hooks regardless. To me it feels similar to a
standard channel bottom – incredible on a clean face, but doesnt
like the soup. The drive it maintains through turns is
outrageous.
But it can also randomly buck you off without a moment’s notice,
punishing any minor misstep or re-weighting through a turn, of
which I’m responsible for plenty.
Here’s the limerick that runs through my head everytime I surf
it.
There was a young man who said, damn! I perceive with regret that I am A creature that moves In determinate grooves I’m not even a bus, I’m a tram
Still but. $50!
Did I tell you it was $50?
It’s a buyer’s market, I’m telling ya.
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Surfers grow increasingly frustrated with
leading surf forecaster’s unimaginative “super swell” monikers,
turn to serial killers for inspiration!
By Chas Smith
Blame Surfline.
Surfers around the globe were treated to a “super
swell” during the almost wrapped week. A “pumping” south
lashed French Polynesia, the Hawaiian Islands, even California with
powerful waves and much fun though smiles turned into frowns when
the realization sunk in that leading surf forecaster Surfline,
official partner of the World Surf League, had officially dubbed
the event “Code Red II.”
The original “Code Red” swell occurred in 2011 but even then the
moniker seemed… unimaginative. This second time around it feels
downright stupid.
David Lee Scales and I discussed, anyhow, on today’s chat and he
brought up the wonderful point that serial killers never have banal
names.
Jack the Ripper, The Nightstalker, The Zodiac Killer, The Grim
Sleeper, Dr. Death, John Wayne Gacy Jr. etc.
The list goes on and on and on and how do malevolent psychopaths
get to carry such poetry while super swells are forced to stagger
under the weight of dumb?
It is obviously Surfline’s fault and we must do better to coin a
name for the next one before those bromidic bros get their way.
David Lee and I also kicked around the idea of steel trap
memories, as they relate to Kelly Slater
Enjoy now or later.
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Florida wave prospectors develop “crazy
eye,” expect new plunger-powered Tampa Bay surf park to exceed $50
million in revenue per year!
By Chas Smith
“Surfing is truly just the start of what we’re
hoping to build here.”
The promise of two wave tanks in every town and
a chicken in every pot has not materialized the way rabid surfers
might have hoped. Surf Ranches, Surf Lakes and Wavegardens are
still relatively far and few between but that reality has not
dampened the lofty expectations of developers who continue to feel
extremely bullish about manmade juice.
Take, for example, the proposed Tampa Bay wonderland set to open
near Tampa Bay in 2025 that will utilize the aforementioned Surf
Lakes’ patented rusty plunger technology. Per a just-released
report:
The 30-acre amenity, an adventure park that can simulate
ocean waves, is being developed by Tony Miller, with assistance
from Hotel & Leisure Advisors — a hospitality consultancy whose
clients include Crystal Lagoons Corp. and Great Wolf Resorts Inc.
According to a news release, the project could generate $50 million
in revenue in its first year of operation, in addition to creating
700 jobs.
The facility’s features, according to the release, could
also include pristine beaches, concert and event venues, bars and
restaurants, retailers, education and business facilities, fitness
and wellness amenities, and more.
“Beyond tapping into the widespread surf culture and
introducing a destination to the Tampa Bay area that will draw
interest from all over the world, we’re creating a shared
experience that every single member of this community will benefit
from in some way,” Miller states in the release. “Surfing is truly
just the start of what we’re hoping to build here.”
$50 million bucks a year is nothing to sneeze at but do you
think our lifestyle and its adjacents is filled with that much
lucre?