California surfer (pictured) tricked by Surfline.

Premium surf forecasting site accused of under-calling wave size during California super swell event luring adult learners to their doom!

By Chas Smith

10 months ago

Surfline up to no good?

The surf has only gotten bigger in California, if such a thing can be imagined. Yesterday, a “swell event” arrived from tip to tail of the Golden State. Massive surf in San Diego, in San Francisco, in Santa Barbara and off Santa Claus Lane too. The only place mercifully spared, Filipe Toledo’s adopted hometown of San Clemente.

Whew for him.

Otherwise big waves everywhere. Blowing right up. Surfline, the country’s premium surf forecasting website, for example, claiming North County San Diego to be “Double Overhead surf continues to mack out the top winter areas with + on that for sure at times. Bottom line this is some serious surf.”

Swamis called 6 – 8ft. (non-Hawaiian).

Though in a stunning accusation, a surfer industry longtimer stood on the bluff, watching the monsters roll and declared the 6 – 8ft to be vicious lies. It’s 8 – 10 with occasional 12, he informed me with much gravitas.

The reason for this major under-call? Well, as you know Surfline has been busy laying-off employees left and right trying to service a massive investment. Some of the surf forecasting has even been outsourced and maybe to artificial intelligence who wishes for adult learners to “know then go” to certain doom?

Nasty, if true.

Though did you surf early today trying to beat the crowds? David Lee Scales and I not. We dutifully sat down, digitally, across from each other and discussed the most important surf-adjacent things happening currently. Like making the perfect martini.

Enjoy.

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Runaway jetski terrorises Mavericks lineup. Jamy Donaldson

Riderless jetski causes chaos at epic twenty-foot Mavericks session!

By Derek Rielly

10 months ago

Ghost jetski delivers a bravura performance at California's premier big wave!

If you’re in California or you like to fiddle with cams and surf reports and so on, you’ll know there’s been waves of some magnitude hitting the Pacific coastline, including big daddy Mavericks.

The “massive extra long period west swell” belting California, and notably Mavericks, is the same damn swell that lit up Jaws and co.

Yeah, there was a little south wind on it but it didn’t stop a United Nations of surfers from Tahiti, Hawaii, Portugal, as well as the usual local heroes including the big-wave surfer turned occasional WSL commentator Peter Mel, from hitting Mavericks.

(Three years ago, almost to the day, Mel, who wears slightly too big flannel shirts and pants with stone washing applied at the factory, rode a thirty-foot tube at Mavericks. “Everyone on earth should see this ride,” said Kelly Slater.)

Mavericks was was first surfed in 1975 by seventeen-year-old hotshot Jeff Clark, who surfed it alone for 15 years before introducing it to the world in 1990.

In 1994, the great big-wave rider Mark Foo died surfing Mavericks; in 2011, another great Hawaiian surfer Sion Milosky drowned after a two-wave hold down. One month earlier Milosky had been named the North Shore’s underground surfer of the year. He used part of his twenty-five gees prizemoney to chase the swell to Mavericks.

(It got its sexy name in 1967 after Alex Matienzo, Jim Thompson, and Dick Notmeyer were surfing way inside Mavs and Matienzo’s flatmate’s dog Maverick kept swimming out to ’em.)

Anyway, turns out a riderless jetski stole the show with a bravado performance, sticking its unmanned lance into a monster wave’s neck before running out of steam as it attempted to motor back through the Mavericks swell and out to sea.

In the clip, captured by Jamy Donaldson, watch as the jetski roams the lineup with impunity before flying too close to the sun.

Anyone who’s ever owned one of the damn things will know they come equipped with a kill switch lanyard, which is attached to a wrist band.

You fall off, boat stops. You don’t wear one, you fall, and it’s a no-man rodeo.

Early reports suggest the runaway jetski belonged to Brazilian Lucas Chianca, one of the best big-wave surfers inn the world although he does ride a very fine line ‘tween life and death.

Two years ago at Nazaré, Chianca and his tow partner Kai Lenny were almost killed after a rescue forced the pair to ride their seven-hundred pound jetski into a ten-foot shorebreak.

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Khai Cowley killed by a Great White shark while surfing at Ethels on South Australia's Yorke Peninsula.

Australia reeling after teenage surfer Khai Cowley killed in yet another Great White attack as expert warns, “It’s going to get worse”

By Derek Rielly

10 months ago

“The show is over in South Australia. The population of sharks is growing steadily and rapidly.”

A teenage surfer from South Australia, Khai Cowley, is dead after being attacked by a Great White shark while surfing at Ethels on the state’s Yorke Peninsula a little after one pm yesterday.

Khai Cowley, a popular fifteen year old who had recently been awarded the “most outstanding grom performer” at his boardriders club, was killed after his leg was bitten off by the Great White.

As is the norm these days, a hero made sure the boy wasn’t abandoned in his fight.

“The shark took his leg and so another local guy ran out, jumped on his board and paddled out to help him,” a witness told the Adelaide Advertiser. “The shark was circling them as the guy pulled the boy out of the water. There was a lot of bood. He brought him to shore but I think it was too late by then.”

His horrified dad watched from the beach as paramedics tried too save the kid.

After news of his death became known, locals drew large love heart shapes in the sand.

“They’re (the family) very well known in the surf community, which just makes this news so much more tragic,” Port Noarlunga local Luke Winter The Advertiser.

Two months ago, 55-year-old surfer Tod Gendle was killed and disappeared by a fifteen-foot Great White at Granites, twenty clicks out of Streaky Bay, South Australia, seven hundred clicks north-west of Adelaide.

Earlier in the year, and just a hundred clicks south, local school teacher Simon Baccanello was killed by a Great White while surfing at Walkers Rocks in Elliston.

A brave soul, Baccanello warned others to split as the shark started swimming towards him telling terrified kids in the lineup, “Don’t worry, get yourself to shore”.

A local expert, who keeps his name outta these things ‘cause the don’t-hurt-the-sharks-yay-Palestine brigade is gonna light him up and he doesn’t need the headache, says this is only the beginning.

He points to the end of the large mesh gill net fishery, closed for over ten years now, and the protection of the Great White as the culprits.

“It’s going to get worse,” he says. “The show is over in South Australia. The population of sharks is growing steadily and rapidly.”

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California surfer (pictured) losing faulty mind.

California surfers lose faulty minds as massive swell event arrives!

By Chas Smith

10 months ago

Giant waves from golden tip to tail!

It’s heeeeeeeeeeeeeere. The promised “swell event” has arrived to California, the entire state from Imperial Beach all the way up to Pacific Shores and my goodness, my gracious. Big and growing. Blacks is currently 8-10 (non-Hawaiian) and the rare Surfline purple for “good.” El Porto, a few hours north, is also 8-10 (still non-Hawaiian) though somehow shockingly walled and closing out. Thoughts and prayers, in any case, to our dear departed Erik Logan (RIP).

Rincon is 8-12, Steamer Lane is 20-25, Humboldt Harbor is 30-35 (all non-Hawaiian) and has such a thing ever happened? Pounding surf from golden tip to tail?

The aforementioned Surfline is using language like “heavy” and “know your limits.”

Weather service meteorologist Nicole Sarment one-upped the subscription service by declaring, “We really want to hammer home that beaches will be very dangerous. People should really not even go.”

But California surfers are not known to listen to reason.

So… where are you going? Silver Strand? It is currently 5-7 (obviously non-Hawaiian) but watch out. The locals are still surly.

Mavericks? It’s 15-20 (Hawaiian) with Condors likely out and about.

El Porto? You already know what’s happening there what with the shocking walling and closing out.

No matter where you paddle, you really can’t go wrong (unless El Porto).

Or are you the sort of California surfer that might sit this one out?

A sudden and so unfortunate tweaked neck oh rats?

Well, weather service meteorologist Nicole Sarment approves of that lack of spine.

Know your limits.

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Lexus sponsors PIpe Pro, replacing John John Florence's Florence Marine X.

John John Florence and Kelly Slater, inset, pray, one day, they might own a Lexus, the new title sponsor of the Pipe Pro.

Lexus replaces Florence Marine X and Vissla as naming sponsor of upcoming Pipe Pro!

By Derek Rielly

10 months ago

Inside a Lexus the driver becomes a privileged creature, protected from all evil.

When the wandering mind turns to surf cars, the Gen Xer might think of VW Kombis, the Millennial a Subaru Forester, Z’s a Sprinter.

What doesn’t come to mind is the Japanese luxury vehicle maker Lexus, maker of the most envied motor cars in the world, a byword for luxury and reliability and quality.

Inside, the driver becomes a privileged creature, protected from all evil. So smooth the Lexus driver can shake his cocaine from a glassine bag into water in a bent spoon without spilling a drop. Filtering the liquid into a syringe through a cotton ball is equally simple.

It’s no surprise, therefore, that your ol pal DR pilots a Lexus.

In my case, it was the Lexus of a local surgeon, pearlescent white, spare tyre never ravaged, seats as plump and unscathed as the day it landed in its crate from Japan. A mechanic sent to examine its entrails reported, breathlessly, that he’d told the owner it mustn’t under any circumstances be sold at the price for which it was offered.

The owner then called, talked about regret, but said he could let it go if I might peel off another five hundred. Doctors, eh?

Anyway, the Pipe Pro, which was gonna be the Florence Marine X/Vissla Pipe Pro, replacing Billabong as the marquee sponsor, has just been renamed the Lexus Pipe Pro.

As Chas Smith wrote when news broke of the John John/Vissla sponsorship,

Florence Marine X and Vissla are both as core as core can be. Opposite of “Authentic” which owns every other surf brand and now means “inauthentic.” The surf fan can hope they will infuse some much needed juice into the broadcast and give us a Pipe we can all be proud of.

“Pipe has been my backyard and favorite wave for as long as I have been surfing. I’ve grown up watching and dreaming of being in these contests,” Johny said at the time. “And then one day I was in them, surfing with the same surfers I looked up to as a kid. To be able to support the event now is a dream come true.”

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A post shared by John john Florence (@john_john_florence)

Play a game with me?

What brought on the switcharoo?

Did John John’s masters get cold feet?

Did Lexus make the WSL an offer too good to refuse?

Was Florence Marine X/Vissla a symbolic sorta sponsor, offering cred, but no cash? A placeholder?

The Lexus Pipe Pro brings back wonderful memories to the older surf fan who remembers when the Japanese department store Marui sponsored the event, the winner being crowned with a sorta Samurai hat with horns.

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Eat beach grit spam!