The Florence bro's pose with new investor Richard Woolcott and his kid Wolfgang. | Photo: Cari Woolcott
Volcom founder Richard “Wooly” Woolcott pours cash into surf start-up Florence
By Derek Rielly
“I was really struggling with all the turmoil surrounding Volcom. I was in a dark place. Florence is a positive light in a sea of chaos."
If any proof was needed that the start-up surf brand Florence, formerly Florence Marine X has become the hottest brand in surf, the appearance of Richard Woolcott, founder and former CEO of Volcom, as an investor is probably it.
Florence Marine X was launched with $12 million in seed cash in 2020. John John Florence quit Hurley and got into biz with Hurley founder Bob Hurley, appointing honey blond star of Endless Summer II, Pat O’Connell, as prez.
The day has come to join forces! So fired up to announce that i will be Surfing under my own Name and will be moving forward under the FLORENCE flag, beyond excited to bet on myself, my brother you may have heard of him (@john_john_florence ) who pioneered this epic endeavor and the incredible team at @florence_marine_x, the future is very exciting, we have the power to reshape the surf industry for future generations
A few months later, the baby bro Ivan Florence also joined the team.
The brand is, to coin an old phrase, hotter than Africa.
“I have always liked the Florence brand and what it stands for. They are focused on building innovative, performance driven products for surfing and other ocean and water-based sports and activities. It’s a modern, utilitarian outdoor brand that fits my lifestyle and product needs.
“The first product I bought from them was their hooded rash guard a few years ago and I’ve been hooked ever since. I also like the fact that the company was started by two well-respected surfing families, the Florence family and Hurley family. With everything going on in the industry, they have been a breath of fresh air, a positive light in a sea of chaos.
When Florence approached me at the end of February about getting involved, I was really struggling with the Liberated bankruptcy and all the turmoil surrounding Volcom. It was extremely hard for me emotionally to see the brand that I had dedicated most of my life to being torn apart. I was in a dark place. With the support and encouragement from my dad, I decided to take the meeting with Florence and see where things would go.”
Wooly also said, “The days of billion dollar brands are over for now. There will always be the exception, but overall, it’s better to live within your means and do what’s best for the brand, the customer, and industry long-term.”
Do you miss the old days when money flowed like honey and when surfers were known for their Baudelairean flair for extravagant personal dress and an atmosphere of decadence hung over it all?
Or is this new Amish-esque conservatism more your flavour?
I prefer the latter.
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Proud Palestinian after emptying his mag into an unarmed Jewish fam. "Your son just killed Jews, dad!"
Surf contest loses WSL sanction after ban on Israeli surfers
By Hayim Leiter
"These Israeli athletes are caught in the crossfire of a reality that no one desires, except Hamas."
A World Surf League contest was canceled in Spain — not called off due to lack of surf or lack of interest. In fact, the contenders had already shown up and were preparing for competition. So what caused this sudden reversal?
Israeli participation.
A few days before the competition was meant to begin, an email was sent to the Israeli surfers, demanding they surf under a “world” flag as opposed to their own national symbol. The demand was untenable to the Israelis and they refused to abide by the request.
When the World Surf League caught wind of what was happening, they canceled the event at great financial loss — and to much consternation on the part of all the hopeful participants.
“The WSL has withdrawn its sanction of the upcoming Donostia Junior Pro, originally scheduled to begin on June 6, 2025, following a new determination by the San Sebastián City Sports Councilor on June 4, 2025 that alters the eligibility status of registered competitors. This change is in breach of multiple provisions in the WSL Rule Book. Section 5 outlines the requirements for athlete entry and seeding, which must be free from arbitrary or discriminatory exclusion. The change also violates the WSL’s established policy, as set out in the Rule Book, of zero tolerance for any form of discrimination, harassment, or abuse.
“Additionally, the WSL was no longer assured of a reasonable level of safety for all participants, as required for all events. As a result, the event can no longer be conducted in accordance with the WSL’s basic requirements for all Pro Junior competitions. Due to these circumstances, the WSL has terminated the Event License Agreement and the Donostia Junior Pro event will no longer be a WSL-sanctioned event. The WSL acknowledges the inconvenience this causes to competitors, partners, and fans.”
Although this story may come as a shock to some, this is not the first time Israeli participants have had to change their flag.
But Lelior confirmed that she and the other competitors decided to hide their flag for security reasons in the Muslim country. The WSL was in full support of their decision.
After writing an Op-Ed piece on the issue, I spent subsequent weeks attempting to publish it in different surf media channels. Most ignored my request or turned it down.
But one outlet showed interest and courage in tackling the issue. At the time, Israel and Gaza were in the midst of a ceasefire.
As final touches were made on the article, the ceasefire broke down and the Israeli offensive resumed. When I asked the editor when he thought the piece would be published, it emerged that we were on opposite sides of the political divide.
Phrases such as “heavy handed” “tens of thousands of civilian deaths” and “untold suffering” became regular descriptions of the Israel/Gaza conflict.
Despite our differences, I cherished the back and forths this editor and I had. It’s not often that those who passionately disagree take the time to consider the opposing view, and we both did just that. My fear is that his outlook is emblematic of the larger surf community. But, unlike my conversations with the editor, there is a general lack of dialogue in today’s climate — and that is exacerbating tensions.
Things in Israel are not so simple. Nothing in the Middle East ever is. Even the Israeli public is divided on what’s the best course of action. Many want nothing but a hostage deal — while still others place primacy on defeating our enemy.
But there are some things the majority agree upon, and those issues were flashpoints in the competition controversy in Spain.
From an outsider’s perspective, with little knowledge of the history and facts on the ground, it’s not surprising that many see Israel as the aggressor. That’s exactly the language the Spanish surf club used in describing the conflict. In their eyes, Israel is akin to Russia and invaded an innocent neighboring country and therefore, the Israelis should have been barred from competing.
But in order for that to be true, the timeline of events would need to begin on Oct 8. Even ignoring all the background between the two groups, which is long and complex, there’s no avoiding the fact that Hamas, along with many Gazan civilians, invaded Israel and committed one of the worst terrorist attacks in history.
Most people, when making their moral calculations about the war, strictly look at the numbers. They’ve heard of the 1,200 murdered on Oct 7 and compare it to the thousands dead on the Palestinian side and come to the conclusion that Israel is in the wrong. And solely on a numbers basis, who could blame them?
One thing we can all agree on is that war is tragic for everyone involved. If Israel was able to achieve the goals of dismantling Hamas and returning the hostages without firing a shot, not a single bullet would have been used. But since Hamas is unwilling to surrender or even agree to a hostage deal, it leaves Israel with no option but to act.
What few point out is that the majority of the civilian deaths reported don’t take into account the number of combatants within that figure. The civilian to combatant ratio is close to 1:1, a feat never before achieved in urban warfare. Of course this is not to minimize the inevitable collateral damage of war. Each innocent life lost is a tragedy in and of itself. But due to the existential threat posed by the terrorist entity at her borders, Israel is doing everything possible to neutralize that reality as precisely as possible.
All this ignores the fact that none of the Israeli surfers came to Spain with this in mind. They, just like any other person in the lineup, wanted nothing more than to surf and maybe make a few friends.
These athletes are caught in the crossfire of a reality that no one desires, except Hamas.
We should do all in our power not to give the terrorists what they want, which is more anger and hatred. The cancellation of this competition has given us the opportunity to dialogue about this complex issue without drawing lines in the sand.
Let’s not squander that chance.
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Sassy surfers sashay as Palm Springs Surf Club announces Splash & Slay Drag Brunch!
By Chas Smith
Gentlemen, start your engines!
Palm Springs, California is generally very hot in the summer. According to Weather Spark, the average daytime June through August temperature is 106 degrees Fahrenheit. At time of writing (7:34 PST) it is 91 with mercury climbing to 113 by Thursday. That will feel downright chilly compared to next week, though, with a predicted temperature of 1 billion degrees sassy for Saturday, the 29th, when the Palm Springs Surf Club swings its gilded gates wide for “Splash & Slay Drag Brunch.”
The fabulousness kicks off at 12:30 in the afternoon, which seems a little late for brunch (but what does this cis white man know?), and will be hosted by Ethylina Canne, who, according to website, has previously won the Desert Drag Race, Best in Drag and Queen of the Desert.
Sue Casa, Cee Cee Russel and Kalista Stage will also perform.
“Join us for a fierce and fabulous drag brunch,” the flyer invites, “where the queens serve looks, mimosas & Bloody Marys flow freely, and the vibes stay splashy.”
Bottomless mimosa or mary, plus brunch, runs $120. Boring ol’ brunch alone $95.
The only remaining questions, I suppose, are which board you will bring and which wave setting you will sign up for (revisit Com Turren’s exhaustive guide here), if you will surf before or after brunch and what drag name you will choose.
1.Experiment with wordplay. Punny names like “Eileen Dover” or “Mimi Imfurst” rely on wordplay for their effect—and these names are as funny and memorable as the personas who inhabit them. “Courtney Act” is the name of an Australian drag queen whose name is a play on “caught in the act.”
2. Dig deep. Sometimes a name can be borne from trauma or the commandeering of a previously painful word. For instance, Trixie Mattel’s drag name came from a hurtful term her step-father would call her when she “acted feminine” (Trixie); when it happened to also be the name of the character she would play in Rocky Horror Picture Show, it became a perfect fit.
3. Find a defining feature. Some queens are named for their own memorable qualities. For instance, drag queen Milk’s name came from a reference to her pale skin. If you have a particularly defining feature, try brainstorming names that can use that to your advantage.
4. Turn to pop culture. Some queens were inspired by figures from pop culture, like Victoria Beckham (Jiggly Caliente’s original stage name “Victoria”) or X-Men comics (PhiPhi O’Hara’s original stage name, “Phoenix Mathews”). See what famous names throughout pop culture you can use to find a name of your own—or at least to spark an idea for the perfect name.
5. Look up other names. Take a look at the most clever and funniest drag queen names to help yourself come up with new names of your own. Kim Chi, Farrah Moan, and Sharon Needles are some funny names of RuPaul’s Drag Race queens that can inspire your own creative take.
As reminder, Bitchy Crab already spoken for.
See you there.
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Photo: @chrishemsworth
Surf fans deeply concerned as Chris Hemsworth’s young son appears to wander down ill-advised path
By Chas Smith
"Chris Hemsworth beams with pride as son Sasha wins his first surfing competition..."
Now, there was a time, starting in the early 1990s, ending in or around 2013, that a young guy or gal could dream about becoming a professional surfer and his or her parents would not weep tears on their Roth IRA statements. Yes their little charge, if just a few clicks better than average, might make a living as local pro, magazine ho, QS grinder or CT stud. Many brands, many avenues, many opportunities.
Well, those days are long gone. The local pro now gets compesated in surf wax, the magazines have all folded, nobody cares about up-and-comers and even those who have reached the bigs can’t afford to travel the world on their paltry salaries.
In a word, or eight, “professional surfer” is no longer a paying gig.
Sasha, 11, took out all-comers at the Byron Bay Boardriders and was chaired up the beach by his fellow competitors.
Hemsworth, 41, dartling with delight.
Surf fans apprehension growing.
While Hemsworth’s net worth is reported to be well north of $100 million, the cost of the professional surfing life is far outpacing inflation and especially for tikes. Travel, surf coaches, contest entry fees and annual Joe Dispenza retreats. By the time young Sasha reaches 18, Hemsworth’s financial holdings might very well be halved.
Those with a “glass half full” mentality, or those who have actually been to a Joe Dispenza retreat, could possibly counter that everything is cyclical and professional surfing will roar back, robustly, soon.
Or as the good doctor puts it:
As more and more people start to wake up to information, there’s a change in energy, because change in consciousness requires a change in energy. And a greater energy causes systems that were once stable to become unstable… to become chaotic, and chaos is just unpredictable order. It’s novelty, it’s newness, it’s an unraveling of systems. So hang on. This is a really profound time because it’s got to break, and when it breaks, something better will come out of it.
Thoughts?
Lighting a candle for Sasha Hemsworth or not in the least bit worried, leaning into the unpredictable order etc.?
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The drone of death!
Barefoot surfing genius George Greenough’s “drone of death!”
By Peter Maguire
"The US military had turned our maritime equivalent of the Willy’s Jeep into a Cadillac Escalade with spinner wheels and TV screens in the headrests."
With no full-time employees or outside investors, George Greenough and my unlikely team took his greatest invention, the GARC (Greenough Advanced Rescue Craft), from a crude sketch in 2005 to U.S. military production in 2010.
Early drawing of the GARC by Martin SplichalEarly days glassing the GARC.
By 2013, our company, Rapid Response Technology (RRT), had won three sole source U.S. government contracts, built and delivered almost 30 GARCs to Air Force Pararescuemen (and others), and submitted plans to Special Operations Command (SOCOM) for a larger variant and to the Army’s Combat Capabilities Command (DEVCOM) for the GARC X MAX Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV).
Despite these accomplishments, like most inventor-owned companies that dare venture up the swampy river of corruption and cronyism that is the military industrial complex, RRT had reached terminal financial velocity.
Even worse, the U.S. military had turned our maritime equivalent of the Willy’s Jeep into a Cadillac Escalade with spinner wheels and TV screens in the headrests.
Sleek!
With millions of dollars of Defense Department contracts in hand, no bank would loan RRT money. Instead of making a Faustian financial bargain with the predatory business jackals who had been stalking me since the first GARC arrived in the U.S., I took out a home equity loan to fund our military production.
By 2012, I was all in and there was no margin for error.
In 2013, some of the GARCs we delivered to the Air Force began to blow shaft seals for reasons RRT could not diagnose. I had no choice but to sell the boat and our contracts to MAPC. Had I not made this painful, but necessary decision, RRT would have gone bankrupt, and I would have lost my house.
“This startup was beset with challenges worthy of a Herman Melville novel,” I said in a 2013 MAPC press release. “Our success was the result of an incredible, multi-year effort by an unlikely team united by their belief in our innovative product and in one another. George Greenough deserves enormous credit for bringing this idea to life in such a short amount of time.”
During the decade that Greenough and I were barred from the military market due to a non-compete clause in MAPC’s purchase agreement, I went back to teaching and writing. Three books and a New York Times bestseller later, I began to write The Voyage of the GARC: One Taxpayer’s Journey Into the Heart of Military Industrial Complex Darkness. You will be able to read an excerpt in The Surfer’s Journal soon.
In 2024, after a decade of R&D and lobbying, MAPC received a 160 million-dollar contract for their autonomous version of George Greenough’s GARC.
Although they have renamed the boat the “Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft,” this semantic shift can’t disguise the distinctive lines of Greenough’s modified cathedral hull.
The MAPC version of the GARC
George and I will not see a penny from this massive contract, but my hat is off to MAPC for their successful navigation of the military industrial complex—game recognizes game.
The GARC is now part of the “Hell Hounds” unit of the Navy’s newly formed Unmanned Surface Vessel Squadron 3 (USVRON 3). “The Navy is aiming to boost production of Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft to a rate of 32 systems per month amid a broader push by the sea service to field more robotic platforms to counter China in the Pacific,” wrote Defense Scoop earlier this year. “The Defense Department has already obligated more than $160 million for the system, according to government contracting data.”
Although MAPC has shared no information about their GARC program with Greenough or me, it is difficult to believe that a diesel powered, aluminum vessel with a civilian halo radar dome can successfully conduct reconnaissance, much less survive the first hour of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
When news of MAPC’s Navy contract broke, I was contacted and congratulated by many old associates from my days as a military contractor. Some were now in the front lines of the war in Ukraine and shared their intimate knowledge of the USVs that were being used against Russian ships. The Russians have also been successful in adopting defensive counter measures. Due to strategic and military necessity, the design parameters for USVs in Ukraine are constantly being redefined.
In early 2023, I received a request to design a family of manned and unmanned vessels. George and I talked about it at length. For both of us, the GARC was unfinished business. RRT had delivered the world’s best small rescue boat, and now it was a drone of death.
George and I agreed to design the new boats on two conditions: we would never again allow ourselves to be rushed or depart from our original designs. When the prospective investor asked for a business plan, prices, and a timeline, rather than making promises that we could not keep, I sent a 2011 business plan and a two-word response: “Cost plus.”
Instead of rushing to market like we did with the GARC, George and I formed Greenough Technology (GT) in 2024. CEO Emeritus George Greenough and I (CEO) assembled some of the world’s subject matter experts and have spent the last two years studying new developments in rescue boats (manned and autonomous), engines, and propulsion systems, USVs and the counter measures that have been used successfully against them.
Once again, we saw the same blind faith in overcomplicated technology that Ivan Trent and I outlined in our 2011 paper, “False Paradigms in Maritime Security: Unmanned Surface Vessels.”
While many defense contractors are rushing into the multi-billion-dollar USV market, most of their vessels will be outdated by the time they are delivered and will suffer the same ignominious fate as the Navy’s Zumwalt Destroyer. As important as recognizing and utilizing new technology is recognizing the limits of the possible.
Greenough Technology is presently putting the finishing touches on the GAC, a waterjet-powered vessel for the littoral zone, the GAM, a manned and unmanned rescue boat, and the GAS, a USV.
