Andy Irons Rising Sun trunks.
Andy Irons wears a Rising Sun muumuu at Teahupoo some years back.

Aussie gold medal hope Jack Robinson deletes Instagram post showing quiver of Japanese Rising Sun flag surfboards

Recent calls for Japan to ban the use of the Rising Sun were met with the argument that the flag is a part of the country's history and banning it would be an infringement on freedom of expression.

A couple of days ago, the Australian gold medal almost-favourite Jack Robinson posted a photo of he and his fleet of Olympic surfboards, each emblazoned with the Japanese Imperial Flag, in this case the eight-pronged version and not the old school sixteen-pronger.

The Japanese Imperial Flag, aka the Rising Sun Flag, which was proudly flown by the Japanese military during its failed attempt to own the Pacific, sits alongside other controversial flags as the Soviet Hammer and Sickle, the Nazi Swastika and, ooh-wee-ooo, the US’s own Confederate Flag. 

A quick aside: Japanese got real close to my part of town, hurling bombs into Bondi from mini-submarines and doin’ a little killing (21 dead on a ferry) in the nearby Sydney Harbour back in 1942. 

Jack Robinson and Rising Sun surfboards.
Jackie Robinson and his fleet of Japanese Imperial Flag aka Rising Sun boards.

Now, Jackie don’t know his history, I’m guessing.

And, the Rising Sun boards are actually Jackie’s tribute to the great Andy Irons, whose Rising Sun trunks kept Billabong staff in bonuses for half a decade in the early 2000s.

Pretty crazy, but you can still buy ‘em despite the Japanese Imperial Flag being associated with the myriad atrocities (Rape of Nanking etc) of an Empire who refused to fly the white flag even when Tokyo was firebombed to a pile of ashes, Nagasaki was blown to hell and the Enola Gay was circling pretty Hiroshima and readying to take 150,000 souls.

Despite only a little pushback on the post, an appreciative emoji from Kanoa Igarashi and one reader who wrote, “Should’ve had Aus colours mate. The Japanese might be cheering for you now”, Jackie deleted the post.

And, as if guided by the karmic hand of the 50,000 Australians killed or wounded by the Japs in combat and the other 10k or so who were starved and beaten to death by their cruel Japanese captors, Jackie subsequently injured his heel in a freesurf, forcing him to cancel all practice sessions.

Very hard to argue that it’s not a pretty flag, howevs.

Now: a favourite debate of mine is Rising Sun Flag v Confederate Flag.

Which offends more? And which continues to delight?

Recent calls for Japan to officially apologise for its wartime actions and to ban the use of the Rising Sun Flag were met with the argument that the flag is a part of the country’s history and that banning it would be an infringement on freedom of expression.

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Barra de la Cruz circa 2006 and the "best contest of all time." You wanna rent? Photo: Edwin Morales/ASP
Barra de la Cruz circa 2006 and the "best contest of all time." You wanna rent? Photo: Edwin Morales/ASP

In deal of century, small group of surfers reportedly rents world’s best right point for $20k!

And for three days, not just one!

Well that certainly took a sharp turn. More later, but in the meantime, Kelly Slater and his Surf Ranch have altered surfing in more ways than can be neatly summed here. The reality that a wave, nearly perfect, could be conjured with the push of a button instead of waiting for Surfline to report storms, that surfing can be practiced anywhere on earth, that waves have monetary value, all groundbreaking.

And it is regarding the latter, surfing’s price economically established, where we lay our scene. A day at Surf Ranch reportedly runs from $50,000 in the offseason, to $70,000 at peak times. Groups can get together and share the cost though, of course, wave count per person is altered. Still, the facility is private, no interlopers feeding off crumbs etc.

Well, according to a source in deep southern Mexico, a group of enterprising surfers, “middle-aged dudes from Southern California,” allegedly, took Surf Ranch financial model to one of the world’s greatest right hand point breaks, Barra de la Cruz, and rented it for three days at $20,000 US total.

Barra, you’ll recall, burst into the surf consciousness in 2006 when the World Surf League nee Association of Surfing Professionals traveled there for “Search” event. The waves were perfect, pumping overhead barrels, and the late, great Andy Irons took the cup with an unforgettable performance in what is still considered “the greatest contest of all-time.”

Back to our modern day, the source shared that he/she rolled up to Barra’s gate and was met by a woman informing him the beach was closed for a private event from Tuesday through Thursday. It was initially assumed it was for a contest but, through some sleuthing, discovered the middle-aged Southern Californian buy.

The local folks were not happy, being shut out of the homebreak and, moreover, setting the precedent that a wave like Barra can be purchased by wealthy interlopers.

Wealth disparity etc.

On the surface, $20,000 for three days of Barra de la Cruz seems like the deal of the century. But in this climate where more and more is going to fewer and fewer the optics, as they say, might be not great.

Thoughts?

And if you could rent one wave in the world for three days, which would you choose?

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Jordy Smith and Gabriel Medina paddle battle.
Jody Smith and Gabriel Medina ain't afraid to duke it out in a heated paddle battle. | Photo: WSL

Olympic surf coach predicts “flying elbows” at Teahupoo after Paris 2024 rule set revealed

"Some paddle battles are going to be psycho. They’re gonna be bumping rails and elbowing each other, whatever it takes to get that inside."

Australian surf coach extraordinaire Matt Bemrose has revealed a strange new rule that will see Olympic surfers “bumping rails” and “elbowing each other” as they battle for pole position at the start of each heat.

Bemrose featured yesterday on the adored surf podcast “Ain’t That Swell” giving listeners an insider’s view on the build-up to the Olympics in Tahiti.

The tastiest tidbit: each heat will start with a paddle battle from the priority boat into the lineup.

Per the ATS:

We’re only just hearing this now for the event for Monday, it’s gonna be pretty funny, for instance you’ve gotta go to the boat 15 minutes before you paddle out and right before you paddle out there’s a three minute break. And they announce the surfer, and the surfer has literally two minutes to get from the priority boat to the lineup before the heat starts. And I’m going, that’s going to be the biggest paddle battle in the history of the sport, and the amount of hassling to get to the inside before the first set comes, it’s gonna be an Ironman before the heat starts, its gonna be nuts.

For the spectators its gonna be amazing and I really hope they film that two minutes before the heat starts. Some paddle battles are going to be fucken psycho. You think about how how nuts Jack is, how nuts Medina is, Joao – all those guys, they’re gonna be bumping rails and elbowing each other, whatever it takes to get that inside. It’s gonna be fucken going down.

Both Bemrose and podcast host Vaughan Blakey also took the opportunity to throw shade on the WSL for their decision to play ads during the first four minutes of every heat.

“That’s the craziest part, that’s the most funnest bit,” said Bemrose. “The first four minutes is when it’s the fucken most wildest thing because no-one has priority, everyone’s battling for that first wave. That’s what we wanna see.”

Note that the WSL is not running the webcast for the Olympics, so decisions on ad breaks etc. will presumably be made by the carriers with the rights to broadcast the Olympics in each market.

Longtime Teahupo’o bodyboarder and forecaster Simon Thornton was also on the line to give his hot takes on the outlook for the event, his hottest take being that we will see at least one righthander ridden later in the event thanks to a strong West angle in the swell. Elephant-brained surf fans may recall that Tom Whitaker and Andy Irons both earned decent scores going right at Chopes in years gone by.

And so we wait with bated breath for that first battle paddle, two minutes before that first heat, likely this Saturday around eight am Tahiti time.

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Joe Biden quits prez race as Martin Potter soars.
Joe Biden quits prez race as Martin Potter soars.

Joe Biden Quit a Presidential Election Contest Once Before

“You know,” Joe said, “I’ve never been a quitter … never quit anything in my life.”

Joe paced his living room, doing the moves: he was gonna prove why this charge was bullshit, and that charge was bullshit. … Yeah, but when could he make the case? The campaign was dying. Fund-raising … forget it. … 

“You know,” Joe said, “I’ve never been a quitter … never quit anything in my life.”

It wasn’t that Joe didn’t see the logic. He’d known since he got home, and started talking with the family: he’d have to get out. He had no way to fight. …

Biden stepped up to the podium, topped with a fungal bouquet of microphones. … 

“Although it’s awfully clear to me what choice I have to make, I have to tell you honestly, I do it with incredible reluctance—and it makes me angry.” …

“But folks, be that as it may, I have concluded that I will stop being a candidate for President of the United States.” 

-Richard Ben Cramer, “What It Takes: The Way to the White House,” (1992)

Once upon a time, in a different Olympic year long since past, Joe Biden quit the race for the White House, his thoughts and words eerily foreshadowing the events of the last few days. 

The year was 1988. A different decade, a different century, seemingly a different lifetime ago, an era without internet or social media or Fox News or phone cameras or even cell phones period. 

Back then you didn’t have anything that could give you a hint of what might be over the horizon. No internet rumor mill, no TMZ or online access to London tabloids, no BeachGrit to float wildly unfounded speculation about who might do what when.

You simply kept peering over the metaphorical ledge, craning your neck to catch a glimpse of the future even as your daily news was limited to the local broadsheet and whatever Peter Jennings or Dan Rather or Tom Brokaw thought sufficiently important to discuss. 

Surf-related intel was even more scarce. Once a month you would flip maniacally through the newest issue of Surfer — or if you didn’t care about the words on the page adding up to coherent sentences, Surfing — scanning the article titles, scrutinizing the contest box scores in the back pages, hungry for whatever nuggets might be had. 

If you were really lucky there might be a new surf flic making its dutiful East Coast run, stopping by the local cinema for a one night special screening where all the hot kids would gather and the second tiers would loaf around the fringes sneaking cigarettes in the shadows and speculating about Ronnie Giesing’s competitive future as Giesing himself passed time macking on the blonde girls with Tropicana tans and three swatches to a golden forearm loitering under the marquee lights. 

Without the slow and steady drip of rumors and speculation, when news did break it hit like the sudden headlamp glare of a surging locomotive appearing out of the darkness. 

It’s nearly impossible to capture the electricity of those moments in words, the feelings you experienced when something momentous materialized, seemingly out of thin air.

Of course, it’s possible my experience was unique. Maybe for others the political and diplomatic news from the world outside our Treasure Coast bubble didn’t make a dent. 

But my dad was a national affairs junkie, a former eagle scout and himself the son of a real life legit congressional medal and everything WW2 hero. 

He had come through the Cuban missile crisis convinced Kennedy was a milquetoast pussy and then decided during the Goldwater campaign of ‘64 that Democrats were hell bent on destroying America and then done backflips of ecstasy when Reagan took out Carter in ’80 and Mondale in ‘84 and always did stuff like refer to the newspaper published in the county south of us as the “Palm Beach Pravda,” as if the socialite crowd hanging at The Breakers’ pool was down with the Kremlin.

Washington D.C. and Moscow and Havana and all the other shit mattered inside our four walls.

As luck and cosmic laws of nature beyond our control would have it, the news-soaked 12 months or so surrounding Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race was peak ‘80s experience:  

  • Biden withdrew because he lifted portions of his campaign speeches from a UK politician without attribution
  • Democratic front-runner Gary Hart’s campaign imploded after snoopy photogs took snaps of him on the yacht Monkey Business with girlfriend Donna Rice
  • Michael Dukakis (the eventual Democratic nominee) torched his campaign when photos of him uncomfortably perched in the driver’s seat of an M1 Abrams tank made him look nerdier than Zuckerberg with a face slathered in zinc
  • Biden used his sudden free time (plus a little boost from Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe) to eviscerate the Supreme Court hopes of uber-conservative judge and co-founder of the Chicago School of Antitrust Policy Robert Bork
  • American Olympians swaggered into Seoul with great expectations only to be trounced in the medal count by the Soviets (plus even their communist allies from East Germany)
  • Australian Olympians stumbled into Seoul still reeling from the cultural assault of the recent release of “Crocodile Dundee II,” but a trio of gold medals helped salve their psychic wounds
  • Even better from the Aussies’ perspective, Damian Hardman and Barton Lynch celebrated their country’s bicentennial by stealing ASP world title trophies back from Curren

This all made for seriously red meat in my adolescent world, where Democrats and Communists and Australian goofy footers were considered existential threats to America’s manifest democratic and surfing destiny. 

But when I think back on those heady days of ‘88, it isn’t Biden quitting presidential campaigns or Americans losing Olympic medals or Australians not named Occy stealing world titles from anointed Californians that stands out. 

In my teenage world, these were the stories that occupied my head, but none of them stole my heart. 

That special place belonged to a Day-Glo-covered VHS that appeared unannounced on the shelf of my local surf shop and a certain English by way of South Africa phenom featured inside. 

Everything else that happened in 1988 fades in comparison, like the atonal warm-up of the symphony before the maestro raises his baton.

When I slipped Wave Warriors III into the yawning mouth of my VCR, the sounds and images that spewed forth forever altered the course of my surfing life. 

I couldn’t have been more enraptured if I had found golden tablets in a New York wilderness — it became my scripture, my touchstone, the constant that stuck with me while politicians came and went, political promises were made and broken, Olympic medals were won and lost, aspiring Supreme Court justices drawn and quartered.

The film opens with a series of clips from the North Shore — Off the Wall, Pipeline and Sunset are the focal points of the first 10-12 minutes. But it’s after this dutiful nod toward surfing’s ancestral home that the movie really kicks into gear, when the narrative driving the story flips from places to people.

Matt Archbold, Gary Elkerton, Christian Fletcher, Herbie and Randy Laine on jet skis, Derek Ho and Gerry Lopez, Dane Kealoha, Martin Potter, Todd Holland and Kelly, Dino Andino / Jeff Booth / Nathan Fletcher, and even Johnny Boy Gomes all get a nod, each of their parts ricocheting into the other. 

Christian Fletcher was the centerpiece of the flic, punting and ripping and pulling into what I only now realize were mediocre North Shore barrels, all to a frenzied punk soundtrack that was perfectly in sync with his frantic style.

Archie was close behind, his savage slashes a notch above Christian’s, his overall performance a notch lower, mainly because he had no Hawaiian clips and, suspiciously, the film didn’t showcase his aerial attack beyond a couple of laughable hops, one clear non-make (the edit doesn’t show the landing), and a halfway decent little backside punt. (The careful editing must have been Herbie’s way of making sure Archie didn’t outshine Christian.*)

Elkerton displayed, figuratively speaking, his legendarily massive cojones in big surf, particularly Sunset and Waimea. 

But like when you find the girl of your dreams, it was Martin Potter’s section that really set my heart on fire. 

It wasn’t his look. Pottz was no blonde beach Atlas. His curly dark hair, grizzly chest, and black and gold Ray Bans were more Atlantic City blackjack dealer than world tour ripper.

His surfboard had flames painted on it, which reminded me of the NASCAR rednecks in Okeechobee, not my spray-curtain-throwing idols at the Inlet.

And he wore webbed gloves — at Trestles — a surf gear choice that will live in infamy as the most sponsor-pandering move ever recorded on acetate.

But his surfing — my god. 

My 15-year-old self melted as I watched him flowing down those San Clemente lines, gathering speed like an F1 rocket with DRS activated, floating over sections, high lining, and when the timing was just right putting his blade on a rail to torque off all that velocity.  

Since I hadn’t spent much time in a half pipe, as much as I admired Fletcher’s surfing I couldn’t really relate to his skate-inspired style, couldn’t see myself ever surfing like him.

But I could absolutely go fast. I was light and twitchy and could skim along the surface of our windswept Florida waves like a basilisk on the long narrow thrusters we all kept in our quivers. 

And I could float the shit out of those beachbreak sections. 

In my mind’s eye, I could see myself surfing like Pottz, flowing along in perfect harmony with the swell, high lines and low lines and all the in-between lines finely calibrated to maximize the transfer of kinetic energy between rider and wave.

I could be Martin Potter. 

From that moment on, I was obsessed. Every time I popped to my feet I imagined those scenes of webbed fingers and a flaming board under the feet of surfing’s Schumacher, racing down the line at Trestles, pumping and floating and carving — and I tried to catch him.

Even Potter’s forgettable string as a world tour commentator couldn’t dampen the ardor of my passion for the surfing he did during his ASP era. 

Today, it’s 36 years later. 

Joe Biden is still quitting presidential contests. 

Olympians are still grasping for medals.

 Wave Warriors III is still apex surf cinema. 

And every time I drop in, I’m still chasing Pottz.

*To be clear, like any vintage piece, the stuff above the lip doesn’t hold a candle to what’s going on in and over the water these days and routinely available for easy sampling in your IG feed. We’re comparing Christian and Archie to their 1988 peers, not Albee Layer or Noa Deane’s latest.

**This past April (2024), Nalu.TV started carrying all of the Wave Warrior videos on the site, you can rent each for six bucks. I went back and watched WWIII to see if it still hits the same. I was struck by how many pocket rides made the final Hawaiian edits and reminded of the central role Sunset used to play in the surf media universe — and the Pottz part still hit, taking me right back to pre-first-bell dawn patrols and peering through seagrape trees at perfect 2-3’ Treasure Coast peelers.   

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Kai Mckenzie and surfboard after Great White attack
Kai McKernzie and his board after being hit by a ten-foot Great White, one of fifteen currently hovering around Port Mac.

Leg of “tough as nails” surfer Kai McKenzie attacked by Great White washes up on beach

Rage teamrider Kai McKenzie joins a rapidly growing group of surfers whose lives have been irrevocably changed by the sharp spike in Great White activity.

It’ll be news to nobody who  lives around Port Macquarie that fifteen tagged Great Whites had been swimming around the joint this past week.

And, yesterday, Rage team rider Kai McKenzie joined a rapidly growing group of surfers from around Port whose lives have been irrevocably changed by the sharp spike in Great White activity.

Last year, Toby Beggs lost his right leg, and part of his left, in a wild, multi-pronged attack where he was dragged underwater twice by a twelve-foot Great White.

In 2020,thirty-five-year-old surfer Chantelle Doyle was hit by a ten-foot White at Shelly Beach, Port Mac. Her husband jumped off his board, climbed on the shark and beat hell out of it, saving her life.

“It was unbelievable, the scream was incredible and there was splashing everywhere,” witness Jed Toohey said, “Mark, her partner, got her up on the board. Mark was a hero. He started laying into the shark because it wouldn’t let go. He saved her life. He got off his board and started punching the shark. If he hadn’t put his own life at risk, it would have been strong enough to take her out to sea.”

Shortly after the attack on Kai McKenzie by a ten-foot Great White, Kai’s leg washed up on the beach.

Fast-thinking locals put the leg on ice and both Kai, and his leg, were airlifted to John Hunter hospital where surgeons hope to re-attach the severed limb.

 

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As I wrote yesterday, to call the stretch of coast from Forster in the south to Byron Bay five hours north a Great White Superhighway is to employ the most fantastic powers of understatement. 

Pull up to any beach on the six-hundred clicks stretch, whether it’s Tuncurry,Crescent Head, Crowdy Head, Wooli, Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour, Byron Bay, Ballina or Kingscliff, and you’ll be in waters bloodied by known killer Great White sharks. 

And, for Kai McKenzie, it’s going to be a long and expensive road back to some kind of normality. As such, a GoFundMe was set up yesterday and, already, 96k of a 100k goal has been reached.

As you can imagine, the upcoming medical expenses for his recovery and rehabilitation is something no one would ever be prepared for. The funds raised will go in assisting Kai in every aspect of his recovery.
Please dig deep for this family to assist with Kai’s recovery and rehabilitation. I am a neighbour of The McKenzie’s. They are a local family with hearts of gold that would never expect or ask anything of anybody, so let’s give back and show them that they have the communities support in this.
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