Apple Watch redeems surf bondafides after Leonardo Fioravanti slam by saving drowning surfer!

"This watch was on your Daddy's wrist when he was shot down over Hanoi. He was captured and put in a Vietnamese prison camp..."

Early last year, though it seems like an eternity ago, the World Surf League breathlessly introduced the Apple Watch as “the official wearable of the WSL.” Championship Tour surfers would strap bright mini computers to their wrists and use them to know who had priority in a given heat instead of looking back at that pesky shore.

“The unique capabilities, ease of use, and incredible water resistance of Apple Watch make it the ideal solution to support our surfers competing in the extreme conditions of our worldwide tour,” the now disgraced WSL CEO Erik Logan said at the time. “Surfers need critical information while they compete, and the WSL Surfer app we’ve developed for Apple Watch provides real-time data that will help the communication flow from the WSL Scoring System to the competitors in the water. We are so excited to roll this out and enable our Championship Tour athletes to focus on their performance and improve competition throughout the 2023 season.”

No telling what happened to the partnership. Much like Jeep, Barefoot Wine and Box to Box Films it was vanished, I think, without reason but those initial heady days were filled with glitch. Caio Ibelli almost missed his call because his Apple Watch “didn’t tell time.

Italian heartthrob Leonardo Fioravanti went one further declaring in a post-heat interview, “I just wanna say, our freaking watches weren’t working and that’s pretty heavy. My watch wasn’t working. And nothing to take away from Apple or WSL. I mean, what they’re doing is great, trying to bring in some technology into our world. But if my watch doesn’t work from start to finish and I gotta ask for time, like, I’ve been used to having the time on me at all times in heats. And we’re fighting for our careers so I hope they figure it out because my watch didn’t work from start to finish. So that’s pretty heavy.”

Pretty heavy indeed with the tech giant’s reputation greatly tarnished in the surf world.

Though surfers, like most, love a redemption story and, here, we have it for days ago the smeared Apple Watch saved a surfers life. The New York Post is reporting Australian Rick Shearman, 49, was out in the waves when he suddenly became distressed out near Byron Bay. The currents were sucking straight out and Shearman… oh he was bodysurfing, so I guess not actually surfing, but, then he remembered he was wearing an Apple Watch and here he picks up the story.

“At this point, I was a long way out to sea, I was being buffeted by wind and big swells, it was actually quite difficult to utilize [the watch]. I had to hold it up to my ear to hear what was going on and speak to the respondent.”

It worked!

Rescuers came and pulled him to shore and Barefoot Wine bottles were popped in celebration. “If it wasn’t for being able to access that service in my watch I’d probably be bobbing out somewhere in international waters by now,” Shearman stated.

Leonardo Fioravanti yet to respond for comment.