Teahupoo judging tower
"I am neither pro nor anti-tower. But if people want to have a professional surfing event at Teahupoo in the future a judging tower is needed to properly assess the tube riding performances."

Paris 2024 organisers reveal state-of-the-art collapsible $5 million judging tower at Teahupoo, Tahiti

Derek Rielly

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"If Teahupoo does not want the Olympic Games we will have flat surf with heavy rain and maramuu winds for the event."

You’ll remember a year or so back the vaguely humorous story of Olympic organisers tearing down the old WSL wooden judging tower at Teahupoo and replacing it with a magnificent aluminium structure for the three-day event at a cost of five mill US.

A little rich, given Paris 2024 has positioned itself as the “sustainable” Games. 

Protests followed and the tower was subsequently toned down, less shitters, less room for for various officials and so on. 

And, now, the Tahiti-based French photographer Tim McKenna has delivered a marvellously balanced explanation of the build complete with photos.

“After my last post on the Teahupoo Tower I realised there was a lot of misinformation in the comments,” writes McKenna. “Here’s some info that might give people a better understanding of the situation.”

Thanks to the pressure of the local population, nature conservation association and all the people around the world who signed the SaveTeahupoo petition, the tower project was reduced to the bare minimum in order to have the least impact possible on the environment.

As you can see on Photo 1 ,2,3 the area where the tower is built has very little coral. It’s a flat shelf with small spread out corals heads and a few bigger rocks covered with coral. Over the years corals has even covered the previous concrete tower base structure as you can see on the video.

– The new tower was never only for the Olympic Games. It’s a collapsable tower that will be assembled every year for the duration of the event. The aluminum structure designed and built exclusively in Tahiti can finally be certified for insurance and safety reasons. It ’s an investment the Tahitian government has made for the the next 20 years of surfing events at Teahupoo.

– I am neither pro nor anti-tower. But if people want to have a professional surfing event at Teahupoo in the future a judging tower is needed to properly assess the tube riding performances.
I personally don’t make a living shooting contest and prefer shooting free surf. I couldn’t care less if there are no more pro events at Teahupoo. However I am pretty sure a large majority of the locals welcome the exposure and business WSL events and the Olympic Games bring. Surf events are also a great way to spark the passion within the new generation of Tahitian surfers and are an opportunity for them to shine and try and make a living out of their passion.

Interestingly, McKenna says the Gods will choose whether or not the tower lives or dies.

No need for all this #olympicbashing. Teahupoo will protect itself. Teahupoo is the birth place of Mana. If Teahupoo does not want the Olympic Games we will have flat surf with heavy rain and maramuu winds for the event. If Teahupoo does not want the tower an XXL swell will take it down.

If Teahupoo wants the Olympics it will put on the greatest show on earth.

Tom Curren (pictured) enjoying some no. 1 surf destination in the world.
Tom Curren (pictured) enjoying some no. 1 surf destination in the world.

Weeping in Hawaii as unexpected interloper nabs coveted “no. 1 surf destination in the world” title

Chas Smith

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"Nobody saw it coming..."

There is a glum pall in Hawaii today. Huntington Beach too and also Australia’s Gold Coast, its west coast, as well, plus Brazil, South Africa, New Zealand, Indonesia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Fiji, Tahiti and Lemoore. The respected travel insurance experts at confused.com, you see, has just dropped its much-anticipated list of “best surf spots in the world” based on “wave quality and surfer satisfaction via data from Surf-Forecast, and overall search interest via Google search data.”

After a lengthy drum roll, and crunching of numbers, Hossegor, located along the southwest coast of France, was pronounced number one.

Not San Clemente and its Lower Trestles.

Nor Bondi and its beach.

Per Travel + Leisure:

“Hossegor ranks as the best destination for surfing in the world, with an overall score of 8.16/10. Hossegor offers reliable, excellent conditions for surfing and is known for its hollow and fast-breaking waves favored by experienced surfers. It has an average surfer rating of 4.25, and 48 percent of the recorded waves are clean and surfable.” The team also noted in the results that the best time to visit is during the region’s fall shoulder season in October when flights and hotels are at their cheapest.

Who saw this coming?

Not those who sold the everything in order to live in a small camper van Byron Bay adjacent.

Nor those who call Sayulita home.

Mavericks, near San Francisco, was somehow no. 2 followed by Tofino in Canada.

Travel + Leisure must have felt some doubt as to the validity of 1) Hossegor 2) Mavs 3) Tofino so called “our friends at The Inertia” to fully demean itself. Zach Weisberg and crew provided 1) Waikiki 2) Nosara, Costa Rica 3) Cocoa Beach, Florida.

What complete nerds.

Like, all the way embarrassing.

Do better, The Inertia.

Surf Equity (left) reliably hilarious.
Surf Equity (left) reliably hilarious.

“Rage over the rainbow” as anti-feminist Surf Equity accuses longboard shaper of hijacking pride flag

Chas Smith

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Dog whistles galore.

One of the most comedically satisfying troupes in our shared space is, undoubtedly, the Committee for Equity in Women’s Surfing. Founded in the middle 2010s, the organization set out championing equal pay, equal access and other noble ideals by, and here’s the joke, attacking women. The Andy Kaufman-esque routine, aiming for a complex laugh, has skewered Keala Kennelly, Bethany Hamilton and Jess Miley-Dyer, among others.

Now, in a development of further waggish material, the non-profit is setting its sights on a longboard shaper who used a rainbow motif on one of his craft. Todd Messick, whom the gang humorously described as “an anti-LGBTQI bigot,” had shared an image to Instagram, obviously opening the door for jokes and giggles.

The question, I suppose, does the rainbow actually belong to the LGBTQI brand or is it, rather, the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples’ who are the original inhabitants of what is now the San Francisco Peninsula. “As Guests,” Surf Equity pens on its chuckle-a-minute website, “we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland, and we affirm their sovereign rights as first peoples.”

The capital G for “Guest” and lowercases for “first” and “peoples” a likely racist dog whistle taking attention from the otherwise lighthearted fare.

In any case, whose rainbow is it?

Todd’s, Surf Equity’s or the Ramaytush Oholone?

More as the story develops.

Jerry Seinfeld surfing
"If I could have spent my entire life just living broke and being a surf bum and every day paddle out and spend a few hours a day surfing, that’s as good a life as any life you could have," says Jerry Seinfeld.

On seventieth birthday Jerry Seinfeld reveals, “I follow every surfer on Instagram”

Derek Rielly

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"Every day I stare at them like a cat looking at a bird through the window."

The co-creator of Seinfeld, Brooklyn-born Jerry Seinfeld, has revealed a lifelong fetish for surfing in an interview with People magazine, a celeb mag with sixty-mill readers.

Jerry Seinfeld, who turns seventy today, owned TV from the late nineties until, almost, the birth of the 21st century with his comedy Seinfeld, which ran from 1989 to 1998.

Seinfeld played a fictionalized version of himself, the straight man with a perpetual poker face to his three tightly wound pals, George, Elaine and Kramer.

Seinfeld was also noted for injecting his melon-red tongue into a diff gal every episode, something noted to great comic effect in the spin-off series Curb Your Enthusiasm by Larry David’s sidekick Leon.

“Every week you get your new ass, every fucking show…you meet some new chick and I know you fucking people,” Leon tells Jerry.

None of it – the cash, the gals, the houses, pretty cars – means anything, however, ‘cause Jerry Seinfeld never surfed and it eats the old New Yorker up.

“I follow every surfer on Instagram,” Seinfeld told People magazine. “Every day I stare at them like a cat looking at a bird through the window. The thing I would like to do more than anything is get up on a surfboard and ride a wave. That would be the dream of my life.”

Compare chasing waves to working a six-week season of twelve-to-sixteen hour shifts, real tough yards even if you’re pulling in thirteen gees for every line.

“I think if I could have spent my entire life just living broke and being a surf bum and every day paddle out and spend a few hours a day surfing, that’s as good a life as any life you could have,” he said.

Spin the table.

Would you give up your life in the ocean for a few hundred mill in the bank, a mirrored white-and-gold bedroom and a conga-line of radiant sex slaves with bush that bulges from their lil panties?

Greater Building Society – “Surfer” with Jerry Seinfeld from Joe Morris on Vimeo.

 

Open Thread: Comment Live on Day Four of the Bonsoy Gold Coast Pro

Chas Smith

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No Kelly, no problem.

Photo: Steve Sherman/@tsherms
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