Mystery surrounds “razor-sharp surf
magnate” Bob Hurley post slamming direction of his eponymous brand
as it’s quickly disappeared from internet!
By Derek Rielly
“Bruh”
It’s hard to imagine, now, the ruckus, disbelief, horror
even, when Billabong’s US licensee, surfboard shaper Bob Hurley,
handed back what had become a license to print money in
1998 and to strike out on his own.
You gonna hand back the keys to Billabong? You gonna call it,
what? Hurley?
Bob was always around, howevs, the company had his name on it
after all, and he took over as CEO for three years, 2012 to 2015,
the glory years of the Nike-ownership era some might
say.
Four years later, Nike sold Hurley to Bluestar Alliance, a
“brand management company”. The way Bluestar works is it identifies
brands it wants to buy and once they get the keys, “our team of
experts embark on a complete and thorough understanding of the
brand’s potential channels of distribution and price point
strategies. We create tools such as brand development profiles,
trend guides, style guides and marketing strategies. These
marketing materials portray graphic illustrations and a strategic
marketing road map to enhance consumer brand recognition.”
The focus at Hurley shifted from R and D, maintaining a dazzling
surf team, high-end accounts and so on to a model focussed on the
bottom line, with multiple teamrider contracts quickly
terminated.
Soon, there were inflatable toy toys, beard oil, hair product,
performance bodyboards, beach chairs.
And, today, before it was quickly deleted from view,
sixty-eight-year-old, Newfoundland-born Hurley, who now heads
Florence Marine X, ran a couple of shots of Hurley’s “performance”
bodyboards and a rack of beach chairs with the withering
comment,
“Bruh.”
Many comments ensued before the provocative post was
disappeared.
Obviously, comment has been sought, crickets thus far although
it’s only been eleven minutes, but what’s your immediate reaction?
Do you think Bob thought it was a little rough on Bluestar? A
little weird to dunk on his own brand?
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Zuckerberg (left) going full retard. Ziff (right) with
his best friend. Photo: Hell
“Super cool, super fit” Mark Zuckerberg and
World Surf League owner Digglin’ Dirk Ziff locked in death battle
for title of “worst billionaire in surfing!”
By Chas Smith
Cage match without the cage.
I think it can be firmly and unequivocally
stated that 2023’s billionaires are the worst the world
has ever seen. Tacky, unrepentant, malicious, nerdy all topped off
with an utter disregard for style and class. It wasn’t always so.
Billionaires like Gianni Agnelli and Joseph Stalin once roamed the
earth cruising glassy waters on Rivas, dispatching enemies to
freezing cold gulags instead of firing them without reason while
they are doing the very best they can to make professional surfers
feel wanted in Brazil.
Today’s batch is very yuck but two have emerged as peak yuck and
both just so happen to be involved in our surfing.
Mark Zuckerberg became infatuated with the Sport of Kings via
his onetime BFF Kai Lenny, who described the Facebook founder as
“super cool, super fit.” Zuckerberg e-foiled lakes, talked about
“doing a fair amount of extreme sport type stuff” including
conquering 15-foot surf and generally made an ass out of himself.
Thankfully, the world’s 7th richest man discovered Brazilian
jiu-jitsu and seemed to be pivoting away from the water… but these
warm summer months brought him back.
Dirk Ziff did one better than Zuckerberg, purchasing not only
Kai Lenny but all of professional surfing for free in 2015 and
doing the absolute best job he can to drive it straight into the
ground. Bad hire after bad hire, after Erik “Buffa”Logan. His
abject and complete hatred for his audience not seen since Augusto
Pinochet.
But who is worse, Zuckerberg or Ziff?
David Lee Scales and I did not, exactly, discuss during our
weekly chat but did touch upon bad billionaires, Ziff being an ass
plus Jonah Hill’s warpath marching ex-girlfriend Sarah Brady. And
then there is our new segment Pros in the Wild wherein good folk
share real life encounters with professional surfers in the
aforementioned wild.
I think you’ll enjoy.
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Grouchy local sea otter terrorizes Santa
Cruz vulnerable adult learner surfing community!
By Chas Smith
"How would you like it if a stranger went in your
backyard and started playing there?"
For all intents and purposes, surf localism is
a dying institution. Litigation-happy adult learners, cameras
everywhere, sensitivity through the roof has rendered a stern
lineup talking to mostly obsolete, to say nothing about waxed
windshields or ear cuffs. And while Jonah Hill’s ex-girlfriend
Sarah Brady is attempting to martial locals worldwide in order to
keep the beloved actor off waves, there are fewer and fewer
instances of territorial water behavior.
Fewer and fewer instances outside of Santa Cruz, that is.
For grouchy localism is surging in California’s other Surf City
and not due methamphetamine or the famous east side vs. west side
rivalry. No, a furious sea otter has been menacing those who dare
paddle the iconic shoal.
Per National Public Radio:
Steamer Lane is a legendary point break in Santa Cruz, home
to swaths of experienced surfers, as well as a 5-year-old female
sea otter with a growing reputation for repeatedly confronting
surfers and kayakers. Video and photographs show the otter chasing
off surfers before commandeering their surfboards — on at least one
occasion biting and tearing chunks off a board — and aggressively
approaching kayakers.
Federal wildlife officials said the otter’s behavior is
highly unusual and the exact cause for such behavior is unknown.
(Perhaps showing class solidarity with the killer whales attacking
yachts?)
What NPR fails to mention, though, is that the otter is solely
targeting adult learners. Every clip has her grabbing and smashing
Wavestorms in the “Klassik Kook” 8ft range.
Misanthropes, everywhere, are applauding.
“So uh… We have been destroying the planet for a couple hundred
years and we act surprised when the wildlife starts to rebel? We
are severely lacking in self awareness as a species,” Sawatsky
declared.
“I love to see aquatic mammals rising up against elites!” the
sazziestofazzies added.
“We can’t applaud Gladys and then hate surf otter. I welcome all
direct action from our animal comrades,” franceswygat chipped
in.
“Stop playing in their backyard! How would you like it if a
stranger went in your backyard and started playing there?”
erikasadventures
Die, human, die.
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Tech magazine calculates exact amount of
unleaded gasoline needed to generate one ultra-green Kelly Slater
Surf Ranch wave!
By Chas Smith
A money-makin' machine!
What wild days these are. Hollywood actors on
strike and/or getting pelted by ex-girlfriends via Instagram
Stories, unprecedented heat blanketing the planet, American
students instantly debt free and Uncle Joe has a potty mouth. So
much crazy that the concept of artificial waves breaking on demand
seems normal.
But do you recall the shock when surf great Kelly Slater debuted
his Surf Ranch facility for the first time? Watching that green
mirage peeling out of the mist? Well it was enough to make everyone
collectively forget that the brave Brazilian Adriano de Souza had
won professional surfing’s crown forever.
Though did you ever wonder how much earth-saving energy it
actually takes to power each wave? Well, now we know. Wired Magazine,
using Surf Ranch’s patented plow technology, has come up with the
exact formula.
Very cool but what does it all mean?
According to Wired:
OK, now that we know the energy it takes to make a wave, we
have some options for how to create this thing. Suppose you use an
electric motor to pull the hydrofoil. If the motor is 85 percent
efficient, then you will actually need to put 19 million joules
into it in order to get 16 million joules into the wave.
The average price of electricity in the US is 23 cents per
kilowatt-hour. Power is a measure of how fast you use energy, and
we can calculate that as P = E/ΔT, where T is time. If energy is in
joules and time is in seconds, then the power would be in watts. So
1 kilowatt-hour is the energy you would get running 1,000 watts for
1 hour (3,600 seconds), or 3.6 million joules. That’s how much
energy you get for just 23 cents. If you want 19 million joules, it
would cost you $1.23.
What about a gasoline-powered hydrofoil? In the US, you
normally buy gasoline by the gallon; in other parts of the world,
it’s sold by the liter. Gasoline stores about 34 million joules per
liter (or 128 million joules per gallon).
However, a gasoline engine has a much lower efficiency than
an electric motor. At best, it would be 40 percent efficient. That
means we would need to use 40.9 million joules, or 1.2 liters (0.32
gallons) of gasoline. Assuming you pay $3 per gallon (which is a
bit lower than the US average in July 2023), that would cost close
to $1, or about the same price as an electric-generated
wave.
$1 per wave?
Let’s guess that Surf Ranch pushes out 8ish waves per hour for
8ish hours a day. That’s $64 dollars of unleaded gasoline. Renting
at $70,000 per day, that leaves $69,936 of pure profit.
No wonder Dirk Ziff is a billionaire.
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Titanic director James Cameron lists
sprawling oceanfront compound at mythical surfing Valhalla
Hollister Ranch for $33 million!
By Derek Rielly
"It’s the last bastion against Los Angeles! You
know shit’s getting real in California when we summon up the
bogeyman of Los Angeles."
The Canadian film director and deep sea explorer James
Cameron is tossing the keys to his beachfront joint at The Ranch
for thirty-three mill, saying he and his fifth wife spend
most of the year in New Zealand so the joint is redundant etc.
Called Tranquility Base, Cameron bought 89 Hollister Ranch Road,
Gaviota, in 1999 for a little over four mill. The parcel sprawls
over 102 acres and includes an 8000 square-foot main house, 2000
square-foot guest house, two barns (one in which Cameron used to
keep his helicopter), a tennis court and a divine swimming
pool.
In the upstairs library, the Oscar-winning writer and director
wrote a movie about blue lizard people called Avatar (Didn’t see,
was it good or silly?), which eventually spawned a total of five
movies thereby edging Cameron even close to billionaire status.
(Currently he’s sitting on around 800 mill.)
“Other features of this exceptional offering include a solar
power system, wind generator, theater, and a spacious gym.
Tranquility Base is mere steps from Drake’s Beach and miles of the
beautiful ‘Hollister Ranch Shoreline Preserve,’ with its world
class surfing waves, fishing, diving, paddling, beach combing, and
abundant ocean-related activities. For those who love horses, one
can ride their horse directly to the beach and up the coastline,
all while experiencing the natural beauty of the landscape and also
the common area of approximately 125 miles of roads & trails
Hollister Ranch offers.
“Developed with self-sufficiency and sustainability in mind,
this property is solar powered with ample energy storage. Southern
California Edison is available, if desired. There are sumptuous
vegetable gardens and an assortment of numerous varieties of fruit
trees.”
The big issue is that private beaches exist at all in a
state that, decades ago, mandated “maximum public access” to
California’s entire 840-mile coastline. Not helping things are all
the fence-sitting surfers, like me, who have forever both-sided the
public-private debate when it comes to the Ranch—everybody doing
the same mental gymnastics, which is basically a version of how do
I get in there while everybody else is locked out and not feel like
an asshole. Which of course is where the “conservation” part comes
into play—the Ranch is the last piece of undeveloped Southern
California coast and must be preserved at all costs—and I won’t
change anybody’s mind here by saying it, but I myself am giving up
on this line of nonsense.
Open up the Ranch. Limit access, charge a fee, patrol the
beaches—whatever has to happen in order to limit or mitigate the
environmental wear and tear that comes with allowing people
in.
But enough stalling. Let people in.
There will be more mess, and possibly some environmental
damage.
But that’s us, that’s our low-budget democracy, and even if
trashcans overflow at the end of the weekend or if some big-truck
assholes go offroading now and then, that is so much better than
fantasizing about Vahalla over the hill and behind the gate, and
there you are stuck on the wrong side without a key.
All your arguments about keeping Hollister Ranch private
make you sound like elitist assholes. There. I said it. I said that
whole thing in my outside voice. I will probably get punched in the
face at the coffee shop tomorrow. Live dangerously, is a thing I
always say.
It’s the last bastion against Los Angeles! You know shit’s
getting real in California when we summon up the bogeyman of Los
Angeles. The Ranch will become another Trestles! Or Rincon! Filled
with kooks!
Just listen to yourselves. Omg! Other surfers like me might
surf where I want to surf! I mean, I hate the kooks as much as you
do, but really, you are losing your minds here.