Crosby Colapinto (pictured) suffering.
Crosby Colapinto (pictured) suffering.

World Surf League Rookie of the Year Crosby Colapinto shatters elbow at Pipeline ahead of season opener

"I didn’t touch any water and straight elbow to reef..."

But what sort of curse has descended upon our World Surf League and who else should be worried? Days after multiple-time champion, and viral sensation, Gabriel Medina tore his pectoralis major, thus being forced to sit out the front half of the season, San Clemente’s Crosby Colapinto has announced he, too, has suffered catastrophic injury one week ahead of the tour opener.

The 2024 Rookie of the Year, who hails from San Clemente, took to Instagram to share:

Welllll… I broke my elbow surfing back door. On the third wave in this clip, I jumped forward off my board after the back spit because I was too deep, fell into the vortex of the lip, the lip ended up going straight to the bottom breaking the flat water, I didn’t touch any water and straight elbow to Reef. So grateful that it was my elbow and not something way worse. What really hurts the most is the timing of it all with the start of the year just a couple weeks away. But I am excited for this challenge that stands in front of me at this moment, And excited to see what comes out of this. “Challenges strengthen you and problems weaken you.” I am going into surgery on Wednesday and will keep everyone updated on how it all goes and the journey of coming back. Thank you to everyone who has reached out and who have sent the love. I will be back soon and this is all part of the journey. I just have to trust it. We are on the spaceship too many!

Medina, Colapinto and likely John John Florence whose coach Ross Williams announced retirement all but finalizing the three-time winner stepping away from the show. The former towhead will likely surf Pipeline, giving surf fans a brief glimpse of what they will miss once the League takes its talents to Abu Dhabi.

Slater gone too, only to surf the tour waves he enjoys courtesy of a magic wildcard.

Does the decimated draw dampen your enthusiasm for competitive professional surfing at its highest level?

Or, will all eyez now be upon the women’s field?

More exciting anyhow, tbh.

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Great White shark in South Australia
Great White shark sticks its beak above the waterline for a squiz at master fisherman Jeff Schmucker. | Photo: Jeff Schmucker

Pregnant Great White shark “as big as shipping container” found dead on Queensland drumline with four pups inside

"You just don’t really come across them that big very often. It is incredibly sad." 

Depending on your perspective, news that that the largest Great White ever caught on an Australian drumline, and with four pups inside, is either relief that five Whites are out of the game or a terrible sadness that man’s inability to come to terms with his vulnerability in the ocean has resulted in a majestic creature’s death.

Queensland’s Department of Primary Industries revealed the 5.62 metre Great White, that’s eighteen-and-a-half feet in you live in the newly anointed Trump Kingdom, was caught on its drumline on Queensland’s Capricorn Coast, at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef.

“You wouldn’t expect to see a large white shark that far north in Queensland during summer,” Daryl McPhee, associate professor of environmental science at Bond University, told The Guardian. “The usual range is from about Harvey Bay, Bundaberg, southern Queensland through New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania [and] New Zealand.”

The drumlines target Bull sharks, Great Whites and Tigers and have been in operation since 1962. They had a perfect record until surfer Nick Slater was killed by a Great White at Rainbow Bay in 2020.

1154 sharks were caught in 2024 compared to 958 in 2023. For the previous twenty years the number hung at around 800.

Once caught on a drumline, the sharks are shot dead unless they’re in the Great Barrier Reef marine park in which case they’re tagged and released.

The Humane Society’s Lauren Sandeman told Australia’s national broadcaster, “To lose such a large breeding female and her pups is a devastating loss to the eastern population of white sharks which only has several hundred mature age individuals.”

Senior Shark campaigner Doc Leonardo Guida from the Australian Marine Conservation Society told The Guardian,

“If Queensland had already transitioned to fully non-lethal shark bite mitigation strategies that are backed by evidence, this shark wouldn’t be dead, pure and simple, and this beautiful giant would still be roaming our ocean. You just don’t really come across them that big very often. It is incredibly sad.”

Are you sad like Doc Guida and Loz from the Humane Society or y’thinking, phew, kinda thrilled that thing ain’t swimming around.

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Eli Anderson (pictured) shredding whilst malingering dolphin (insert) awaits opportunity.
Eli Anderson (pictured) shredding whilst malingering dolphin (insert) awaits opportunity.

Australian surfer breaks pelvis after gang of dolphins brutally assails him in lineup

"It's their domain, not mine. The dolphins won - and I'm ok with that."

Australian surfers are well aware of shark dangers all along their fatal shore. Man-eating beasts stopping at nothing to taste human flesh, government officials even sometimes accused of aiding and abetting the pillage. But a new, heretofore not imagined, horror has presented in the form of the friendly dolphin.

But let us not tarry. Let us hustle to Emerald Beach, midway up the New South Welsh coast where the tradesman Eli Anderson, 20, was enjoying a surf at the very end of December. Weather hot, sun shining, disaster lurking. A pod of 2o, or so, dolphins was out fishing and went food berserk, catching the almost young man up in their frenzy.

“They came from nowhere and one of their fins sliced my board,” he declared to the universally appreciated Daily Mail Australia. “I was knocked off and then knocked out so I don’t remember much until I was washed up on to the beach. As I came around, I started to count my limbs and checked for blood. I was in a lot of pain but also so confused, because I thought it must have been a shark attack.”

While his limbs were intact, his pelvis was not.

Busted at the seam.

His father, mercifully, was on the beach after catching a wave in and shared that he had seen sharks in the area before but “never thought dolphins would be a problem.”

The pelvis break, anyhow, will take two weeks to heal and the young-ish Anderson is expecting to get back in the water directly.

“It’s taken me a long time to process it really, but nothing could stop me surfing,” he said. “It’s their domain, not mine. The dolphins won – and I’m ok with that.”

A few questions I have about this wild tale. Two, actually.

1. I have seen folk getting knocked out and washed up on shore in movies but have never read about it happening in real life. Is possible without drowning?

2. A crumbled pelvis only takes two weeks to heal?

More as the story develops.

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Mark "Zuck" Zuckerberg rides giant waves in Hawaii
Zuck gives foil-hell to Hawaiian outer reef and, inset, announces his pivot right on Joe Rogan.

Insane scenes as tech chameleon Mark Zuckerberg foil-surfs 20-foot Hawaiian waves!

"Send it!" says Zuck!

The tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, once the plaything of the left-leaning Biden admin and an avatar of the soft bellied liberal man, has pivoted hard right after being inducted into manhood via surfing, jiujitsu and kick boxing.

“A lot of the corporate world is pretty culturally neutered,” says Zuck, of his transformation. “I have three sisters, no brothers, and three daughters, and no sons. I’ve been surrounded by women my whole life. The masculine energy is good. Society has plenty of that, but corporate culture is really trying to get away from it. I think having a culture that celebrates aggression a bit more has its own merits that are positive and having a thing (MMA) that I can do with my guy friends is good.

“The intent on all these things is good. If you’re a woman going into a company, it may feel like it’s too masculine and that there’s systems that are set up against you — but I think these things can always go a little far. It’s one thing to say we want to create a welcoming environment for everyone, and its another thing to say that masculinity is bad and its toxic and we need to get rid of it.

“Both of these things are good. You want masculine and feminine energy. But I do think the corporate culture has swung towards being a neutered thing.

“I didn’t feel this until I got involved in martial arts. It just turned on a part of my brain that made me say okay, this was a piece of the puzzle that should have been there, and I’m glad it now is.”

His masculine energy was on full display with a foil-surf sesh near his Kauai home recently. Although Zuck, who is forty, is careful to remove himself from the waves well before they break he still managed to gather enough clips to thrill a who’s who of surfing.

“We on for Jaws next week?” – Kai Lenny

“Bomb.” – Italo Ferreira.

“Hell yeah. Charging, bro.” – Zeke Lau

“Looks like a blast.” – Jamie O’Brien

The times are a-changing, as they say.

For better or worse? Dick or pussy?

I’m of the former camp although won’t be surprised if it turns out to be the latter.

 

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Derek Rielly (left) with Bob Hawke.
Derek Rielly (left) with Bob Hawke. | Photo: Richard Freeman

Surf media legend Derek Rielly appears on world’s most popular surf podcast!

Core Lord.

Derek Rielly is a multi-hyphenate artist. Author, editor, creator, award-winning across all. The only issue with his constellation of talent is that he does not particularly enjoy, or lean into, self-promotion. Difficult, then, to find a spot to hear, or read, the literary giant reflecting upon his own life.

Jed Smith, one half of the world’s most popular surf podcast Ain’t That Swell, must have sensed the gaping Derek Rielly-sized hole in the space and took it upon himself to fill it with an episode of “Core Lords.”

It is a brilliant 2-plus hours. The two discuss surf media history, meandering down memory lanes of Australian Surfing Life, Surf Europe, Waves and Stab. There is forays into the writing craft, Malcolm X, the current state of politics and the years when Jamie O’Brien was a rock star.

Smith is a deft interviewer, guiding the delightful conversation which, to borrow from Rielly himself, is truly essential.

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