“Imagine putting six years of passion into something you loved and pioneered just to be told you have no value to it.”
The Hawaiian Cheyne Magnusson, who singlehandedly altered the course of aerial surfing at BSR cable park in Waco and who then took his considerable expertise to the Palm Springs Surf Club, has exited that building in a hailstorm of recriminations.
It was Magnusson’s pulling and manipulation of the levers who turned Waco, which would’ve been another crummy pool, into the best wedge anyone had seen anywhere.
“You know, the hard part that we’re facing at this juncture is that the people who develop these technologies, they’re brilliant, unbelievable engineers, hydrodynamics, aerospace, whatever, they’re really smart,” Magnusson, who is forty-two, told me a few years back. “They read a lot of books and so on. But then you have those guys colliding with us, people who’ve dedicated their lives to surfing. You can be the smartest person in the world and you can develop these machines but you need surfers, people who’ve looked at the ocean their whole lives, to know how to… move… the water.”
In another interview with BeachGrit he explained, I come in and play the piano. Give me a bunch of knobs to move water and I can make it sing.”
Earlier today, a bombshell from Magnusson when he announced that he’d been cut from the Palm Springs Surf Club team.
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Goodbye Palm Springs Surf Club. The ride has ended for me, kinda ended back in the fall when I think about it. Imagine putting 6 years of passion and dedication into something you loved and pioneered just to be told you have no value to it. One day, the real story of what went down here will be told, not today though. Despite that, I am still very proud of what we built. The real people who worked the day to day will always be the best thing I take from this experience.
The relationships are what matter. Seeing the stoke on people’s faces when they made their first slab was one of my favorite things, you could feel their energy in the tower! Proud of the **loyal** surf patrol guys and happy to pass on knowledge to them, those guys are hammers!
Proud of my wife, @_courtneymagnusson for everything she did to set her side up for success. Her dedication to her team and leadership is truly what made that place tick day in and day out. A big part of being so dedicated to this was so I could share the love of surfing with my daughters, sad about that not being there anymore. Word to the wise, be careful who you partner with. What’s next? Stay tuned the possibilities are endless…
A who’s who of surfing, including Jamie O’Brien, Mark Healey, Matt Biolos, Freddy Pattachia and BBC-cuckolding pioneer Pete Taras all joined in the comments to praise the Hawaiian for his skills etc.
The Palm Springs Surf Club has been mostly well-received, its wild take-off into barrel the sorta wave that’ll test anyone, but has been subject to multiple breakdowns.
BeachGrit’s Com Turren, no relation etc, visited twice. Hither and yon.
First visit: “After a 1.5 hour drive, I arrive to check in early and take inventory of the place. I am informed at check in that the wave machine is having issues and the pool can only run the intermediate A-Frame wave. No barrels for Com today, but that’s what I get for going into any surf session, pool or ocean, even so much as thinking about getting barreled. Such are the consequences of surf hubris.”
Second visit: “When I inquire about the wave setting applicable to the earlier sessions we are observing, YET AGAIN, barrel hubris strikes—there are no barreling waves at PSSC on offer today in any of the public sessions. This time, it is not a technical issue with the pumps like it was back in January. Instead, PSSC has presumably moved the goalposts in terms of what constitutes the “Advanced A-Frame,” a setting that was formerly described as follows:
“These slabby cylinders give surfers the option to pull in on the takeoff and come out in time to do one or two more turns if you are quick enough.”
“Now, it basically looks like the intermediate wave I surfed back in January with perhaps a touch more height and a touch more juice, but it is certainly not barreling.”
Vale Cheyne Magusson.
