“She was in the most dangerous spot imaginable. I looked around and the only person who’s going to save her is me."

The larger-than-life surf cinematographer John “Gordo the Great” Gordon has been reunited with the Ukrainian nurse whose life he saved in a wild battle of “underwater jiujitsu” six months ago.

Gordo, sixty-one but presenting with excellent T levels and smelling like a locker room, filmed the world surfing tour for twenty years before being dumped by the World Surf League, inexplicably and without warning last year.

Gordo’s filmic career is marked by awards, acclaim etc. He worked for the Seven News network in Queensland for two decades, in between gigs with Jack McCoy and his series of iconic Billabong films, before shifting into surf full-time.

So when a Gold Coast-based Ukrainian nurse jumped into the water at Fingal up there on the NSW side of the border with the Gold Coast and Gordo saw her being washed around the headland, he wasn’t going to stand by and wait for Superman.

A day to blow or get blown!

“She was in the most dangerous spot imaginable. I looked around and the only person who’s going to save her is me,” said Gordo, who described trying to rescue the gal as like “underwater jiujitsu.”

The nurse, Liv Titor said:“I couldn’t believe it. I stepped into nothing and it got me straight away. Johnny jumped in with his surfboard, told me to hang on and said we’ll get through it together. And that’s what we did.”

Six months on, both of ‘em still have flashbacks about the event, Gordo haunted by what might’ve happened if he wasn’t there and Liv, nightmares about being back in the water and having her legs pulled out from under her by a ferocious current.

“I only took two steps into the water and I just felt this pull in my legs and it just took me around the rocks and out,” she told Channel Nine.

Now, Gordo plans on getting Liv back in the water before she’s sunk by fear of the ocean.

“We’re going to get back out there ’cause the ocean has got so much to offer, it’s so great but you’ve got to respect her.”

Haydenshapes' spectacular Mona Vale factory destroyed by fire…

A couple of weeks back your ol pal DR spent a delightful hour or so shooting the breeze with the shaper Hayden Cox and his biz partner, marketing whiz wife Dani at their factory in Mona Vale, Sydney.

It ain’t hard to admire this pair. There’s Hayden, the sunny faced forty-one-year-old with a boyish face and his rock star chic gal Dani who still own a biz that could’ve fallen into investors’ paws years back, pouring their hearts into a conga-line of new ventures. For these kids, it’s all sweat equity.

And the factory is spectacular, what you might call a paradoxical minimalist grandeur. The pair proudly showed me through the place, their baby, with its concrete floors, the soaring ceilings and its acres of glass.

I wasn’t surprised. The couple has collabed with Audi, Alexander Wang, IWC watches, Dion Lee, Mr Porter (for their eponymous surfwear brand) as well as making resin furniture for high-end Australian brand SP01.

So it’s a little heartbreaking to hear the joint went up in flames earlier today, thirty firefighters and hazmat crews “racing to control a fire belching enormous billows of smoke…but the well-known surfboard factory the fire sparked within was destroyed.”

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The Haydenshapes factory at Tengah Crescent lit up in the late afternoon, although a cause has yet to be determined. One staff member was treated for burns.

Hayden started Haydenshapes in 1997 when he was twenty-two, and who wrote a best-selling book seven years ago called New Wave Vision about his climb to the top.

I described it back then as “a wonderful story of a driven kid who shucks the expectations of his family (accountancy!) to learn to shape, build a surfboard company, create a unique method of surfboard construction and, eventually, be feted by icons as diverse as Audi and Alexander Wang. A tough biz-man, sure, and…oowee… a little sensitive to the inconsequential yapping of critics, but his advice, his thoughts, are compelling… as a window into a young shaper’s rise, fall and rise, of the challenges of the surfboard game, of defiance in the face of unsupportive parents, of making your way in the world on your own terms, it works.”

"Love is the only way and we are all love. Humans all have hearts that beat and lungs that breathe and blood that pumps through our veins."

You’ll know, by now, the imbroglio surrounding the Mexi Log Fest, a much-loved longboard event that has been getting heat from trans-activists after the contest organiser included the rule, “There are only two divisions: natural born women and natural men.”

Like I always say, don’t upset the trannies, they ain’t got the humour they used to.

(Contest organiser Izzy Preciado was slammed, first, by Fringe Surfers New England, which was quickly followed by Surf Equity, whom you’ve read about here, here, here, here and here. )

Following the heat, Sponsors Oatly and Hydrophile Surfcraft pulled out of the event and, now, the festival’s head judge, Erin Meza-Ashley (aka worm), pronouns she/they, has quit, explaining her decision on Instagram thus: 

Please bare with me It has always been a point of pride that one of the driving principals of @mexilogfest has been able to provide a platform for all the talent in the world that cannot be contained by 16 person invitational. @mexilogfest has also strived to create an event that enhances the community by creating an environment for people to make deep seeded friendships with others from across the world as well as being the first longboard contest to see the value of men and women as equal and proving it by providing equal prize purses for all. 

It has been my great privilege to be a part of the judging family and specifically Head Judge at last years event where i got to see some of the best surfing i have ever seen in real life from both the women’s and mens division. In light of statements made by The @mexilogfest on how they are going to discriminate against what is an already marginalized group; it is with regret that i have to resign my position as a judge for The Mexilogfest. 

Our actions and words in and out of the water have the ability to limit other peoples possibility to reach their full potential; furthermore hatred develops from words, prejudice through exclusion, and escalating violence towards those that word aim to dehumanize. 

The talent pool around the world has been growing exponentially over the past few years and i really hope it continues to do so. It is also my great hope that the community grows with open hearts and welcoming arms for all of our brothers and sisters who love the ocean as much as i know we all do. We will be known forever by the tracks we leave. I hope to see y’all in the ocean soon.

 

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Commentary below the navel is interesting, with cameos by Lucy Small a Sydney-based longboarder and surf feminist who rocketed to fame when she gave organisers of a longboard contest hell from the stage for paying the women half as much as the men, and former Channel Islands frontman and log wizard Devon Howard, who is far too slick to be straight, let’s be frank.

Kassia Howard, big-name logger and face of Roxy, summed up the mood of the less militant.

“Love is the only way and we are all love. Humans all have hearts that beat and lungs that breathe and blood that pumps through our veins.”

Meanwhile, in Rio, BeachGrit’s fav crossover gal Eddie Rodrigues tries out her new equipment!

You go T-Girl!

 

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