The stories, the quotes, the anecdotes are as rich as you might
imagine when two men who’ve known and trusted each other of
thirty-five years meet with loose tongues and time on their
hands.
To know where to begin with faced with the treasure trove which
is Kelly Slater’s remarkable life is difficult.
He is born to a one-eyed fisherman-surfer Dad, an alcoholic, who
rode switch on lefts so he could see the face of the wave and a
Mom, who’s been married before, who works at NASA. They live at
Coco Beach in the shadow of what used to be the world’s greatest
space program.
How the Slaters ended up in Coco Beach, Florida, is the most
remarkable of all the stories. His Mama Judy tells him that her and
Daddy Stephen Slater were driving through the ski town of Telluride, Colorado, in the late
sixties and were…this…close to buying half the town for
two hundred gees and setting up a mountain lifestyle.
These days, Telluride is the home of the rich, the famous, the
beautiful. Tom Cruise sold his ranch there for forty mill, and ten,
twenty, thirty mill for a house or ranch, don’t surprise anyone in
those parts. It’s been described as a “crucible of
billionaires and ski bums.”
“My Mom told my Dad, let’s move to the mountains and live in the
snow,” says Kelly Slater. “My Dad was, like, no, I want to be at
the beach. So, I mean, if we owned half of Telluride we’re probably
be billionaires at this point.”
“Well, you’d be a snowboarder,” says Barton.
“Probably be a skier, you know, back then and maybe I’d
understand the snow and the mountains the way I do the ocean. But
our destiny, our fate, was to be at the beach. My Dad wanted to
camp and fish and hang out at the beach and have a beer with the
boys. So we ended up the beach and I wouldn’t change a
thing.”
An essential two hours.
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Somehow, Tyler Wright transforms what should be a
radical turn into a whippy little spinny thing. Tyler’s version
never seems to land too close to the pocket. It’s like a top turn
trying to be something more interesting in the same way a writer
might try to use bigger words to look smarter. It’s easy to see
through the lie.
Is the WSL trying to kill women’s pro
surfing?
By Jen See
"If people who actually like surfing get bored and
wander off, maybe it’s time to rethink the thing."
I have a stupidly short attention span. This
makes me extremely fun on roadtrips. Are we there yet? What if we
just decided that here was good enough?
Recently, for example, I drove to San Clemente and back in a
single day. I did not enjoy it. I sat parked on the PCH, stared
at the shuttered Boardriders store at Topanga, and wondered what
the hell I was doing.
Sometimes, things take far too long, is what I’m saying.
Sometimes, I am not that patient at all.
This has both nothing and everything to do with contest surfing.
The way the Championship Tour works now involves a whole lot of
waiting. There we are, grinding along through opening rounds in
small, inconsistent surf. It’s rarely that interesting.
Try to watch heats live, and there’s more ad breaks than waves
ridden, and most of the waves are shown on delay. Watching the
replay the next day feels more live than the live show. Also,
there’s only two ad breaks on the replay. I try to find joy in
unexpected places.
All of that waiting and patience, two skills in which I don’t
excel, is to hopefully someday make it to the promised land of
finals day. That’s the thing that’s supposed to make this whole
trip worthwhile. Sometimes, it even works. It might be nice,
though, if a few more roadside attractions popped up along the
way.
By the time finals day came around, I felt pretty sure that the
comp at Margaret River had lasted the entire year. Pipeline? Oh,
that was five years ago. Like driving the 405, time had lost all
meaning.
But at last on Sunday in West Australia, finals day arrived just
in time on the last day of the waiting period. No hate here, I
believe in procrastination. I am a writer. Game recognizes
game.
On Sunday Kaua’i girl Gabriela Bryan won her first ever CT event
after beating Sawyer Lindblad in the final. She also rocketed up
the rankings to slide into the top five. It might look like a
surprise result, but Gabriela’s been making heats consistently and
she was the only rookie her year to make the cut. It was only a
matter of time.
If you didn’t know what a perfect layback should look like, John
John showed how it’s done in his semi against George Pittar. Rail
engaged. Body extended. Deep in the pocket. This is how you do it.
Why am I talking about John John? Because once you’ve watched John
do that turn, you can’t possibly bear to watch Tyler do it. It’s,
like, so painful.
In the quarterfinals, Tyler surfed a clean, if not especially
inspired heat to beat Caity. To be clear, Tyler deserved to win it.
But that layback, man. She used it twice in that heat and the
judges rewarded it both times.
Somehow, Tyler transforms what should be a radical turn into a
whippy little spinny thing. Tyler’s version never seems to land too
close to the pocket. It’s like a top turn trying to be something
more interesting in the same way a writer might try to use bigger
words to look smarter. It’s easy to see through the lie.
At the moment, the judging panel does not seem to reward
variety. Or at least, they don’t punish repetition. It’s possible
to win heats, even very important heats, doing the same turn over
and over. I don’t think I’m being super controversial here if I say
that this is not super exciting to watch.
It also seems to go against the whole point of the thing. At its
heart, surfing is creative self-expression. The Championship Tour
should showcase the best surfers in the world. Surely, the best in
the world can muster up more than one turn at a time. I know I am
impatient and bad at all kinds of things, but I don’t think this is
too much to ask.
Tyler may have sold the judges on her layback, but Caity also
made it easy for her. Caity’s inconsistency as a heat surfer is her
weakness — and maybe her only weakness. In her quarterfinal against
Tyler she fell on two scoring waves and left points on the
table.
On her opening ride, Caity’s extra carves and wiggles made her
look indecisive rather than stylish. The judges like smooth polish
and Caity didn’t convince them. Despite her loss to Tyler, Caity’s
still world number one. And she has plenty of time to shapeshift
her dynamic, expressive surfing to fit what the judges want to see.
I just hope that procees doesn’t kill the spark that gives Caity’s
best surfing its magic.
In fact, Caity’s not alone in this dilemma, and the heat between
Brisa and Molly had a similar quality. Brisa brought a fairly
straightforward approach to the table, and she looked steady and
controlled. The judges liked it. Her power and her tidy, carving
turns have kept Brisa above the cut line this season and vaulted
her into the top five. It’s a notable shift from last year when she
missed the cut.
By contrast, Molly desperately wanted a big section to bash.
That’s where she thrives. Out on the face at Margarets, she looked
ragged around the edges. The thing about Molly is, she’s figured
out the hard stuff in surfing first. She got a frickin’ 10 at
Pipe. She can smash the hell out of giant sections at
Sunset. Now she has to perfect the nitty-gritty details.
My favorite surfer of the day had to be Sawyer. She ripped it
out there. Her solid backhand is doing an excellent job of
memoryholing that bobble-headed paddle interference she had at
Sunset. She’s animated and feisty. Who the heck wears a springy at
Margs? Sawyer does. During her semi against Tyler, she nailed a
legit hammer on the end section.
After beating Tyler, Sawyer made her first ever CT final. At
Bells, she made the quarters for the first time. The San Clemente
girl is starting to find her rhythm with this whole CT thing, and
she flung herself over the cut line. In the process, she sent
12-year CT veteran Lakey Peterson to the Challenger Series.
In the final, Gabriela went on two waves early, but couldn’t
find a score. Sawyer came out swinging and took an early lead with
a mid-six on her opening ride. Gabriela could only find a five to
answer, and it wasn’t until around the twenty-minute mark that she
began to swing the heat.
Dancing with dolphins, Gabriela
turned a two-turn wonder into a 7.83. Her first turn
hooked deep into the pocket. An arcing bottom turn set her up
perfectly for a closeout bash. Gabriela’s strength and short-legged
stance allow her to pull her turns in tightly. At a time when the
judge’s have fallen back in love with power turns, her surfing’s
like catnip to them.
With ten minutes to go, Sawyer came close to retaking the lead.
She needed a 7.44, a tall order with the onshore building. On a
mid-sized set wave, she bashed out two solid hits and rode out some
weird Margs double-up shit on the inside. The score, a 7.27 came
heartbreakingly close. Not enough.
Inside the final minutes, Gabriela slammed it shut with an 8.10.
The score mostly came from a heavy closeout hit, but it felt like
the judges had painted themselves into a corner on this one. They’d
been paying two-turn waves all heat. They’d already thrown high
7’s. There was nowhere left to go but up. Gabriela rightly won this
one, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sawyer get hers soon.
We’ve got about a month until the tiny post-cut women’s field
heads to Tahiti. You have already heard my views on the cut and how
bad it is for women’s surfing.
I will not bore you with that sort of thing again here.
Ten women. That’s fucking absurd.
I like to be optimistic, sometimes.
And in that mode, I would like to hope that the new CEO takes a
hard look at the product his little sports league is offering. It
is, I would argue, not the showcase the athletes’ talent deserves
nor is it especially entertaining to watch most of the time. If
people who actually like surfing get bored and wander off, maybe
it’s time to rethink the thing.
In the meantime, I’ll just be over here trying to stay awake in
traffic.
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Geoff McCoy and Hawaiian great Barry
Kanaiaupuni.
Legendary surfboard designer Geoff McCoy,
“creative, intense, cocksure”, dead at seventy-nine
By Derek Rielly
“The most dominant force in surfing around the
world…”
They sure don’t make ‘em like ol Geoff McCoy anymore and
maybe there’ll never be another like him. A child of the
fifties and sixties, a man of the seventies and eighties, unsullied
by the viruses of the modern world.
The legendary surfboard shaper and designer whose no-nose
concept paved the way, at least partly, for the modern thruster
outline has died in Tasmania, aged seventy-six.
Geoff McCoy, described so poetically by Matt Warshaw as
“creative, intense,
cocksure” is best-known for his Lazor Zap design, a
tear-drop shaped surfboard with a big ass and a needle dick that
Cheyne Horan rode to consecutive world title runner-up finishes in
1981 and 1982.
McCoy never recovered from the setback, at least financially,
and drew a narrative that he was being crushed by the “industry”,
although he continued to shape in his little factory there in Tweed
Heads.
Apart from the Lazor Zap, you could buy a Quazor Zip, an Astron Hot or
a Nugget.
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10! 10! 10! 10! 10! for John John
Florence!
Snot and piss and tears fly in World Surf
League judging booth as epic Margaret River final evaporates
drudgery that brought us here!
By JP Currie
Or wait... did it?
Good waves cure most ills, as we well know.
But historic low level trauma is hard to cut through. That’s
what this Margaret River comp felt like. On again, off again.
Insufficient waves. Achingly long lulls. Hanging on to the vain
hope of something good on the final day. Watching compelling
narratives spool out, then sag.
No-one within the WSL will understand this, of course. All they
will see is a successful finals day and believe it evaporates
memories of the drudgery that brought us there.
The final, between the enigmatic John Florence and Jack
Robinson, a man forever hovering between psychopathy and
transcendence, was valid. Both traded in numbers deemed to be
excellent on the arbitrary, fluid, and oft controversial scale set
by the WSL. But there was no controversy this time.
Florence gave a good account, and will still lay claim in the
minds of many to the title of best surfer at Margaret River.
But Jack Robinson won, and he would stand vehemently against
this. He did so in the final by mainlining uncut panache, leaving
his best performance til last in tantric mastery of heat
strategy.
His 9.10 was unquestionably the best wave of the heat. It was
only two turns, but the opener was the best of the whole
competition. It was a turn worthy of a poster, whipping him back
into the pocket with such ferocity that he momentarily disappeared
behind the falling lip.
Yet he emerged, as he always does, to connect with the end
section and add exclamation to ecstasy. The resulting finger
wagging claim was well-warranted.
Not so justified was the hard sell on the final wave of his
quarter final against Imaikalani deVault. There was doubtful
conjecture in the booth about whether he’d got the 7.17 he needed
to turn the heat, yet the score came in at 8.33, perhaps owing
mostly to his vigorous reaction.
Judges are prone to this sort of emotional response, especially
in the final moments of heats or from surfers who use claims
sparingly. They latch onto narratives like the rest of us, and this
can skew the scores into the highly subjective region of
objectivity.
They’d been dying to give John a ten, as they eventually did in
his semi final match with wildcard George Pittar.
How many excellent scores has Florence had now at Margaret
River? How good is he here?
And, oh, what’s that board he’s riding!
Please, sir, won’t you tell me again?
When Florence blew out the tail in a layback no-one should’ve
recovered from, the judging tower squealed with the collective glee
of middle-aged men watching bias confirmed.
In the booth, Taj Burrow, ageless as a woodland sprite, assessed
the score at a 9.63. Both wonderfully precise and highly
agreeable.
Yet in the judges tower chubby digits had been poised for John,
just waiting to punch in perfection. Snot and piss and tears
flew.
Unanimous tens!
Somewhere, Clay Marzo peered at his phone and furrowed his
brow.
It was a great wave, a spectacular wave, but did it really
deserve a premium insulated tub?
Does any?
Worthy of note were the performances of Seth Moniz, who looked
better than he ever has. According to commentary, the strategy in
the Moniz camp was a code word to encapsulate his approach. That
word was “Moledo”, a neologic mash-up of Moniz and Toledo.
The approach worked. Not only did Moniz notch his best finish in
a long time, but he vaulted eleven places in the rankings and far
away from the cut line he’d been hovering round.
It was a valid strategy, for surely Filipe would’ve made
mincemeat of Margaret River over the past couple of weeks. No Box
to worry about, just mediocre Mainbreak walls to eke power and
speed where others would find none.
Moniz had clearly been watching lots of tape, and in the glare
of a midday sun you’d have been forgiven for mistaking him for
Toledo. His rails were incisive, his surfing faster and more
torquey than usual. And his arm placement, those high elbows so
emblematic of Toledo’s style, was picture perfect.
But performances like this, the entertaining finals, the solid
waves, all of it was too long coming.
Was the waiting period for this competition really only ten
days? It felt double that.
We need these things done in two.
Put simply: we need fewer surfers and better waves.
The first thing is easy, and from this point forward will be
somewhat addressed.
The second is a little more complex. You can’t script the
weather, but you can give yourself a better shot at aligning with
it.
Overlapping heats should be standard. This format speeds
progress through rounds, maximises good waves, and alleviates
lapses in action.
On days like this, a lot might happen in a short space of time,
and I’m sure judges hate it when a flurry of waves leads to a
backlog of scores. But it’s not about them, it’s about the viewing
experience.
This is the mistake made relentlessly by the WSL. They remain
ignorant of the end user experience, the fans that might make or
break them.
I’m sure ten days of trawling wineries in Western Australia or
scoring waves around the Peniche peninsula (everywhere but the
contest site) suits the WSL employees just fine. If I was part of
that bubble I’d love it, too. Maybe I would even grin inanely and
happily spruik milk substitutes and ladder companies.
Of course there’s a wall of positive noise. Why would you
challenge such a cushy gig? And of course they’re pumped on a final
day of good waves. It’s the climax of a ten day holiday!
Whether it’s wilful or blinkered ignorance of their failures
hardly matters.
To its detriment, the World Surf League is still largely an
insular, jobs-for-the-boys, cottage industry. It is resistant to
change and ignorant of simple truths.
They might think that one day of good waves cures all, but it’s
a handjob without eye contact.
How many days of glaring mediocrity is that really worth? How
much time and sustained interest can we really give?
It’s hard to love pro surfing when it doesn’t love you back.
The WSL wants to be a serious sports league. Its existence
depends on it. But no amount of brand activations or gushing
superlatives can compensate for the fact that competitions can only
muster a few hours of genuine entertainment among days of mush.
And that, quite simply, will be the death of it.
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Kelly Slater back on top?
Earthquake cracks pro surfing’s foundation
after revelation beheaded Kelly Slater has actual path to
requalification!
By Chas Smith
"Let’s assume he gets wildcards to Tahiti and
Cloudbreak..."
We, many of us here, have all been pretending
that the world’s greatest historical surfer Kelly Slater is done.
Goose cooked. Bun firmly in oven. That his retirement announcement
after failing to advance at the just-wrapped Margaret River Pro,
thereby dropping him below the cut line and off tour, was real
twice over. First, in that he wanted to “step back” with baby boy
on the way. Second, that he simply could not continue due not being
on tour.
Now, last year the World Surf League fixed it by gifting the 11
x champion a special season long wildcard. This year, the “global
home of surfing” has not offered a similar golden ticket miffing
Slater’s most diehard fans. These Slateries want to see him in a
competition singlet come hell or high water and they just might get
their sinful wish.
For an eagle-eye’d surf fan has run the numbers and… well
here.
Hey Chas,
I was just thinking about the GOAT’s retirement.
Let’s assume he gets wildcards to Tahiti and Cloudbreak. He
can definitely win one if not both those if it’s pumping.
Now, according to WSL rules. Ex champions accrue points
towards the ranking post cut even if they are wildcards.
If Kelly was to win one and do ok in the other, make 2 semis
for example, he would probably have enough points to secure a place
for next year right? If he places above the 22nd surfer.
Could we see Kelly rising from the ashes back from
retirement in three months?
He now sits with 3990 pints. 1 win and a semi would add
16085 points taking him to 20000. With only 2 more events besides
these it would be hard for the bottom surfers to secure more than
that.
Interesting.
Interesting is right.
Thoughts?
More as the story develops.
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by
@theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
