Sierra Kerr, Erin Brooks and Kelly Slater.
Fiji wildcards Sierra Kerr, Erin Brooks and king of the Pacific, old man Kelly Slater.

Teenage surf prodigies Erin Brooks and Sierra Kerr join Kelly Slater as wildcards for Fiji Pro!

Teen gals and king of the Pacific Kelly Slater take on the world at Cloudbreak!

The Texan-born Canadian Erin Brooks, who cemented her place in surfing lore after a ten-point ride at Snapper Rocks that officially ended a forty-year perception that women couldn’t ride tubes on their backhand and who was eleven when she first surfed Teahupoo, has been awarded, along with Sierra Kerr, a wildcard into next month’s Fiji Pro.

 

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Sierra Kerr you know as the seventeen-year-old daughter of former tour surfer Josh Kerr and who has become an online sensation for her work in heavy waves, above the lip and, occasionally in contests, as evidenced by her recent ten-point ride at Nias.

A little press release action follows below:

Currently leading the 2024 Challenger Series rankings, 16-year-old Erin Brooks (CAN) is only a couple of solid results away from securing a full-time spot at the elite level. Having spent weeks training in Fiji earlier this year, along with her incredible performances in hollow left-handers all over Indonesia, Brooks will look to play spoiler at Cloudbreak as the Top 10 women are all vying for a spot in the WSL Final 5.

2024 WSL World Junior Champion Sierra Kerr (AUS) has spent the last few years chasing hollow, left-hand barrels from Indonesia to Tahiti and has shown the world she is setting the bar when it comes to backside tube-riding. The 17-year-old accepts the event Wildcard as the reigning WSL World Junior Champion and is fresh off some incredible performances at the regional level, most notably her 10-point ride at the recent Nias Pro.

Announced earlier this year, 11-time World Champion Kelly Slater (USA) accepted the event wildcard for Fiji, a location where he has claimed four CT victories (2005, 2008, 2011, 2012) and even posted a perfect heat total, one of only ten in CT history. Always a standout at one of his favorite locations on the planet, Slater will be looking for a fairytale in what could be one of his last competitive appearances at the elite level. 

The Fiji Pro runs August 20 to 29.

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Surf history enthusiasts demanding the World Surf League set the record straight.
Surf history enthusiasts demanding the World Surf League set the record straight.

World Surf League comes under heavy mainsteam media fire for brutally mangling women’s surf history

"Weston-Webb’s perfect 10 wasn’t even the second..."

Paris. The City of Light. The City of Love. Host of the ’24 Summer Olympiad wherein athletes from around the world will come and enjoy fine cuisine, heavenly art, architecture, music, poetry… ballet in a finest form. Yes, the runners and jumpers, balance beam balancers and iron ball throwers will be in heaven. I will be covering, from the gilded streets, lightly dusted with Pomeranian waste and be sure to bring you all the gossip.

Unfortunately, our surf heroes, both men and women, will not be here. They will, in fact, be as far away as one can possibly get, exactly halfway across the world, sharing time with Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost at “The End of the Road” in Tahiti.

Teahupo’o, or Head Place, is no slouch unless we are considering cuisine, art, architecture, music, poetry and ballet. It is one of the most intimidating waves on earth framed by the greenest of crags jutting into the bluest of skies only mocked by the clarity of the water, only lightly tainted by a 25:1 gasoline to oil mixture.

Surf fans are certainly well-acquainted with Teahupo’o, its terror and its glory. The World Surf League, which bills itself as the “global home of surfing” circa 1976, via 2015, maybe less so.

It came under serious criticism, less than one month ago, for its “cruel and sloppy” smear of big wave icon Keala Kennelly. The Tahiti Pro had just been run with tremendous performances from Rio Waida, Gabriel Medina, John John Florence but mostly Vahine Fierro and Tatiana Weston-Webb. The latter caught and amazing, throaty beast and scored a perfect ten, which the World Surf League stamped as “first ever” by a woman.

Per the press release:

Despite losing to eventual event winner Fierro, Tatiana Weston-Webb (BRA) made history today with the first Perfect 10 ever from a woman at the Tahiti Pro. Weston-Webb dug deep to paddle over the ledge and into a huge set wave, making it to the bottom and almost catching her rail in the critical part of the wave only to recover and put herself deep in the barrel, behind the heavy Teahupo’o curtain. Weston-Webb then navigated the foam ball and the spit to fly out of the barrel for the Perfect score. Weston-Webb’s amazing surfing continues to push surfing’s progression even more in today’s pumping conditions.

Unfortunately, over two decades earlier, the aforementioned Kennelly dug deep to paddle over teh ledge and into a huge set wave, making it to the bottom, putting herself deep in the barrel and scoring a perfect ten. The Kauai local was forced to take to social media to declare:

I’m getting very tired of the media diminishing the surfing legacies of my generation (and other past generations) I recently had a history making accomplishment of mine completely erased and bestowed on someone else then spread all over the internet.

Maybe included in the “past generations,” though not specifically mentioned, was Chelsea Hedges and let us turn to the mainstream media titan Guardian for the pile on:

Weston-Webb’s perfect 10 wasn’t even the second. Australian surfer and 2005 world champion Chelsea Hedges also scored a perfect 10 at the wave the same year the event was cancelled, Kennelly said in a video posted to Instagram. Reporting from the time of these events verifies Kennelly’s claims, and the WSL website now refers to Weston-Webb’s perfect 10 as “the first since the women’s event’s return at the Tahiti Pro”. The WSL did not respond to a request for comment on the dispute.

But do you imagine the AI bot that wrote the press release has been unplugged? Maybe even replaced by one that enjoys strong coffee, spicy food and live music?

One “Emily Morgan” is certainly looking for a job now that her old employer, Surfer Magazine, is helmed by a “real boy.

The World Surf League refusing to respond to a request for comment is not uncommon, as the organization makes Kim Jong Un’s North Korea look like a free speech paradise.

Erik Logan?

Are you there?

More as the story develops.

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Former top ten comic Kurt Braunohler and "the moment."
Former top ten comic Kurt Braunohler and "the moment."

Former top ten comic nearly breaks neck in eldritch surf wipeout

"Before I really understood what was happening a lifeguard had me in a neck brace and an ambulance was on its way."

We surfers know the dangers of our second favorite pastime (after hunting the finest foie gras) and don’t take paddling out into the ocean lightly. Ever. Except maybe for those days where warm offshore winds tickles a Surfline 3 – 4 feet of beachbreak swell (actual wave heights 1 – 2 feet) but even then the terrors of a rogue leashless longboard or stepping on a stingray are ever present.

And let us become introduced to Kurt Braunohler, a beloved comic named “Top 10” by Variety, a few decades ago, and hailed for making the audience “see things that were always there but never noticed” by The New York Times.

Well, the ocean does not read reviews, good or bad, and dealt the 48-year-old a nearly life-changing blow, days ago. He reports:

I grew up surfing. I deeply love it. It’s a core part of how I understand myself. For the last two years I hadn’t gotten out much (kids, work, out-of-shape, etc), and it bummed me out. Two weeks ago I had a revelatory session. The best I’d had in years. I kept saying (out loud to no one) “I’m back baby!” I was stoked.

Two days later I was psyched to go out again. 15 minutes in. i drop in, the wave closes out and catches me on the head and drills me head first into a very shallow sand bar. My neck bent in a scary way. I heard a breaking noise. In my 35 years of surfing I’ve never had anything like it happen. I was pretty scared.

I (thankfully) walked out of the water, bleeding and disoriented. Before I really understood what was happening a lifeguard had me in a neck brace and an ambulance was on its way. Spent the day at the hospital and got it scanned. I’m very lucky there’s no bone damage. (My thanks to the lifeguards and paramedics who helped me.)

I was stuck for a while between feeling grateful to be alive and angry that it happened. But I’m letting the grateful side win. Thank you. thank you. thank you. I’m grateful to be able to walk the dog. I’m grateful to have dinner with my kids (who won’t stay seated for more than 30 seconds). I’m grateful to my wife for dropping everything and racing to the hospital to bring my glasses and buy me Jersey Mike’s and lift things for me. I Love you. I’m so happy to be here.

A real wake up call.

A “graphic” warning was included in the slide show and vulnerable adult learners are encouraged to not look at this image here.

Fans immediately flooded Braunohler’s feed with heartfelt well wishes including funny man Bert Kreischer whom you certainly know from the Ryan Reynolds’ film made on his life, Van Wilder, his standup, podcast or love of BeachGrit. Leaning into the latter, “The Machine” penned “@beach.grit headlines???”

Though the whole business is six days in the rearview, The People’s™ surf portal is always willing to lend a hand, thus, “Former top ten comic nearly breaks neck in eldritch surf wipeout.”

Not the best but often good enough is good enough.

Or, in the parlance of BeachGrit, “We sometimes sort of try.”

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Teenage Australian rescued at Teahupoo thanks men who saved his life and issues grim warning.
Teen Australian Byron Mcloughlin issues grim warning to anyone thinking they can swing in on and shoot Teahupoo.

Teen surf photographer almost killed at Teahupoo issues ominous warning ahead of Paris 2024 Games

“Teahupoo is the heaviest wave on the planet…stay on the boat.”

The Australian surf photographer Byron Mcloughlin is lucky as hell he was surrounded by some of the best watermen in the game three days back when he was found floating face-down during a heavy eight-foot Teahupoo swell. 

Nineeten-year-old Mclouhglin, who was shooting the action from an inflatable bodyboard, had been sucked over the falls on an earlier set and had ended up in the lagoon. 

The former tour surfer Michel Bourez went in to pick him up and brought him back to the channel. 

Mcloughlin went back into the lineup to shoot and thirty minutes later was found face down by Santa Cruz photographer Ryan Craig and local bodyboarder Angelo Fararie during a lull. 

When Mcloughlin was flipped over his lips were blue and he was foaming at the mouth. 

Writing from his hospital bed in Papeete, Mcloughlin has thanked all those involved in his rescue and warned others to maybe not take shooting from the water at Teahupoo lightly. 

“I also owe my life to the real hero’s who kept me alive in the marine at Teahupoo, @david.ariimoana @clement_roseyro @tikanuismith @bourezmichel @taxiboatcocoteahupoo @angelofaraire I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this if it weren’t for your courage bravery and knowledge when shit gets real…Teahupoo is seriously no joke and without a doubt the heaviest wave on the planet. Safety first is a must and stay on the boats when you can.” 

Teen surf photographer Byron Mcloughlin thanks Tahitians who saved his life at Teahupoo.
Box Mcloughlin thanks his Teahupoo rescuers.

In a post one day earlier, and prophetic as anything as it turns out, Tahitian surfer-diver Tehutu Wong fired a broadside to anyone who thought they might wanna tackle mean ol’ Teahupoo.

“Cameraman don’t forget for your safety to pay a drive and stay on the boats!! Only locals filming from the water!!”

Tahitian Tehutu Wong issues warning to surf photographers and Teahupoo
Tehutu Wong’s prophetic warning to photographers a day before teenage Australian Byron Mcloughlin almost drowned.
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Shannen Doherty (pictured) a surfing babe.
Shannen Doherty (pictured) a surfing babe.

Tributes pour in for Beverly Hills 90201 star and surfing bad girl Shannen Doherty dead at 53

“I have a rep. Did I earn it? Yeah, I did."

Amidst increasingly weird and wild times, the surf world came together to mourn the passing of the great actress Shannen Doherty at the too young age of 53. The Hollywood star, who became notable to surf fans during her run on Beverly Hills 90210 as the girlfriend of surfing bad boy Dylan McKay, played to the hilt by Luke Perry.

The two would often sneak away in McKay’s vintage Porsche Speedster for unsanctioned Malibu surfs.

In one episode real trouble struck when Doherty, who played Brenda Walsh, witnessed a horror surf accident.

Doherty’s publicist declared, “It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of actress Shannen Doherty. On Saturday, July 13, she lost her battle with cancer after many years of fighting the disease.”

In a 2020 interview with Good Morning, America, the actress revealed that her cancer diagnosis was terminal while sharing more about her life in television/film. “I have a rep,” she gamely stated. “Did I earn it? Yeah, I did. But, after a while you sort of try to shed that rep because you’re kind of a different person. You’ve evolved and all of the bad things you’ve done in your life have brought you to a much better place.”

Perry, of course, died at the tender age of 52 after suffering a series of strokes.

Surf fans trusting they are enjoying the hereafter together.

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