To Mike Feb belongs the power of feeling, the power of the soul.

Africa’s greatest surfer Mikey February delivers second stunning riposte to the New Yorker’s claim that his style is “as self-conscious as the duck-face selfie!”

Derek Rielly

By

"All I know is that when one makes love, one changes a woman slightly and a woman changes you slightly."

(Editor’s note: Two years ago, The New Yorker ran a very good, and uncharacteristically raw, story by Jamie Brisick called, “Surfing in the Age of the Omnipresent Camera”, which described Mikey February’s surfing thus, “His hand jive, soul arches, and toreador-like flourishes play to the camera in a way that breaks the spell of the itinerant surfer in far-flung solitude. His style is as self-conscious as the duck-face selfie.”)

In this compendium of surfing clips and sweeping panoramas from Côte d’Ivoire, we find the South African surfer Mikey February, not as the pro surfer who once upon a time ran on the world tour, but surfer as a beautiful object,  a beautiful thing, worthy of worship. 

No one, I believe, can resist falling love with a such a face. 

Also starring in the short film is Alex Knost, a surfer who has hacked his own pathway out of the cultural jungle. A little bit sixties, some seventies, all 2000s. A retro-futurist-modernist cupcake who loves surf!

“The longer you surf, the more waves you ride, the more surfers you meet and that helps to widen your perception and the amount of respect toward everything,” says Alex. 

Completing the triumvirate is Lee-Ann Curren, the thirty-two-year-old daughter of the three-time world surfing champion Tom Roland Curren, unbeatable for most of his career and who popularised the modern fish surfboard.

Pipe Gang Bang.

Hawaii’s Queen of Crazy Mason Ho releases jaw-dropping short film featuring infamous Pipeline reef: “It’s a more serious affair. It’s life or death!”

Derek Rielly

By

Come smell the glue and chemically migrate to a forbidden world!

How many times have we seen Mason Ho, the thirty-three year old from Sunset Beach, clinging to his flying trapeze, every fibre of his skin at breaking point?

And while trying to postpone the inevitable fall, giving an impression of ease and grace?

This is the artist’s compulsion, the obsessive pursuit of the masterpiece.

In this latest episode of Mason’s adventures on Oahu, we are transported to the infamous Pipeline/Backdoor reef; a zone that twists into a diabolical snarl immediately after the takeoff.

Come smell the glue and chemically migrate to a forbidden world…

Mikey and Jamie get wrapped up, as snatched by GoPro.

Hawaiian superstar Jamie O’Brien records heart-stopping POV footage of near-death collision with other surfer: “I almost died first wave! My worst wipeout at Pipeline!”

Derek Rielly

By

"Lucky to be alive," says Jamie.

The almost-forty year old Jamie O’Brien has snatched a breathtaking POV sequence after a “near-death” collision with underground Hawaiian shredder Mikey Bruneau at ten-foot Pipe.

The 2003 Pipe Master, who is 190 pounds of rock hard muscle with 40 pounds of sturdy protective fat, and who once told me, “A big gut helps you breathe bigger and better” and who leaves no muffin unbuttered says, “I almost died first wave! So gnarly!”

Jamie paddles in early on his nine-foot foamie before Bruneau, a former Pipe Trials winner, joins in the fun.

Vid is cued up. Hit play.

Come and get it! Oowee!

Insane! Man beats hell out of palm tree before getting swamped by tsunami!

Derek Rielly

By

From the anything-for-a-viral-video department… 

Tsunami, tsunami, tsunami.

The word is on everybody’s lips as Pacific coastlines bolt down following an undersea earthquake off the Kingdom of Tonga at three-thirts last night, the sonic boom from the event heard as far away as Alaska, six thousand miles away.

Meanwhile, in Tonga, waves a few feet high crashed into houses.

Anyway, on a lighter note, a video has emerged of a man beating hell out of a palm tree before being washed away by, likely, the tsunami that hit Indo on, ironically, Boxing Day, 2004.

The provenance of the wild video, and therefore motivation etc, is unknown, although the life jacket and multiple angles do imply it was an early attempt to crack the viral video market.

Pretty early evening Pipe.

John John Florence releases Pipeline documentary four years in the making, “It draws us toward obsession, the power and the glory and the grandeur!”

Derek Rielly

By

An endless treasure and battlefield… 

The two-time world champion John John Florence and his media team have released, after four years, an eleven-minute sorta documentary about the wave the champ grew up in front of, Pipeline.

“It took many different shapes over the years to get to where it is now,” writes John in the short film’s liner notes. “It was originally started in December 2017 as a film that focused more on a group of friends who grew up learning to surf Pipeline. Through different creative rounds, and a couple years on the shelf, it eventually evolved into an idea that followed the imagined point of view of Pipeline, with a perspective narrated by local musician Paula Fuga. It was a fun challenge to create a visual history of the wave, but this is not meant to be a complete story. There are too many people to name who have become a part of Pipeline’s history over the years; they could never be fit into one short film. Thank you again to everyone who helped us put this together. The project is dedicated to Derek Ho, and those like him who have dedicated their life to surfing Pipeline.”

Very ethereal, pleasing to the eye etc although I would describe Pipe simply as “Fuck or be fucked.”

Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by @theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
EAT BEACHGRIT SPAM!
It's Daily!