Hair-raising: Gladiator Mason Ho’s
extraordinary going-ons at heaviest reef yet!
By Derek Rielly
The obsessive pursuit of the masterpiece.
How many times have we seen Mason Ho, the thirty two
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 a relatively remote reef that twists into a
diabolical snarl immediately after the takeoff. Forbidden ground
for most.
Mason persists.
A hand-plant results in many sea urchins.
The moment of triumph comes shortly after.
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Candid Tom.
Almost sixty-year-old Tom Curren releases
surf movie of the year, Free Scrubber: “I don’t have any searching
left to do. I’m old!”
By Derek Rielly
A one-of-a-kind ride with comic filmmakers Vaughan
Blakey and Nick Pollet.
Best surf movie of the year? Too early to let
the floodgates of ecstatic joy burst free?
Free Scrubber, and the unusual title will be revealed
in the final few seconds, is a film built around Tom Curren’s
three-month Mexican vacay in 2020, the three-time world champ
trapped across the border as COVID hit and the US shut its doors to
the world.
Curren, who turns fifty-seven this year, was with Australian
filmmaker Andy Potts and surfboard collector Mark
“Buggs” Arico, the unlikely trio equipped with a
portable electric piano that could be played on the beach, fishing
equipment and a flotilla of surfboards.
Tom don’t like tubes.
The beach town in Oaxaca they were staying in was cleared by
police of foreign gringos with only Curren, Arico and Potts
avoiding the round-up.
Lineups? Empty.
The footage, sent to Australia on two unmarked hard drives, was
then masterfully assembled by filmmakers Vaughan Blakey and Nick
Pollet.
I called Vaughan to lavish his royal cherry with praise; how
it’s the first time on film the world is gifted funny Curren and
not the dark mysto cat we usually get.
“When I watched the raw footage it was the greatest thing I’d
ever seen,” says Vaughan. “I couldn’t believe it. How the fuck
do you get Curren where he’s not being mysterious?”
I tell Vaughan that I love the section where Tom plays
piano while ignoring his interlocutor, Buggs Arico.
“Tom isn’t paying attention. He gets so much adoration,
everything handed to him, everyone falls at his feet,” says
Vaughan. “At what point does he stop connecting with people and
live in his own world?”
The surfing, of course, is a joy to watch.
Curren, jigs and races.
“On a wave he’s ageless. The fact that he’s not looking for big
sections to hit is easy on the eye. It’s not all about the hammers.
You’re not waiting for him to do something. He’s just
riding waves.”
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Jamie O, pro pool.
Pipe Master Jamie O’Brien’s shock
confession: “I could just retire and surf a wavepool for the rest
of my life!”
By Derek Rielly
Mick Fanning, meanwhile, says tanks are
"boring".
I still see wavepools like a boy examining a naked woman
for the first time, looking over the subject each inch by
inch, legs apart, stomach pushed forward, a frankness in my stare
as I dreamily lick a Turkish delight.
Don’t care if it’s Wavegarden, Slater, American Wave Machines or
Surf Loch. I do love them all.
Jamie O’Brien is similarly enriched by the experience.
The almost-forty year old who won the Pipe Masters in 2003
(“It’s a long time ago. Fuck it pisses me off,” Jamie says) appears
in a wave pool documentary made by Red Bull that also features
three-time world champion Mick Fanning, who presents the counter
argument.
Mick, who has diplomatic immunity now that he’s retired from pro
surfing, says the tour event at Slater’s pool event was “boring”
and that after a day in the tank he’s “done.”
Watch thirteen-year-old girl Chrislyn
Simpson-Kane give hell to world’s heaviest wave: “I felt like
puking!”
By Derek Rielly
"Exhilarating, scary, and crazy good!"
Along with aerial pioneers Sierra Kerr and Erin Brooks,
Maui shredder Chrislyn Simpson-Kane is making the existing
hierarchy of female pro surfers look a little, how would
you say, off the money.
“I towed Pe’ahi today and it was exhilarating, scary, and crazy
good! I felt like puking after my first wave but it got better
afterwards,” the kid admitted.
Gripping: Mason Ho, Ivan Florence and co
blitz epic Waimea on Super Saturday, “The near-vertical plunge from
crest to trough is one of the sport’s greatest challenges!”
By Derek Rielly
"Annihilating wipeouts!"
Rare is filmic evidence of Waimea
Bay’s outrageous entry.
Warshaw’s Encyclopedia of
Surfing describes it thus. “This near-vertical plunge
from crest to trough is in fact one of the sport’s greatest
challenges, testing the surfer’s equipment, wave judgment, fitness,
and nerve. The drop will often ‘jack’ (steepen and expand) without
warning as the wave curls over, a phenomenon that can actually
reverse the surfer’s forward motion and send him back up toward the
crest—and then to an annihilating wipeout.”
In this video by Rory Pringle, and featuring Mason Ho, Ivan
Florence, Coz Colapinto and co, you get a read on what it’s like to
pilot a ten-foot womb-duster over the ledge on a
twenty-to-twenty-five-foot day, waves in any other year that
would’ve been gobbled up by competitors in the Eddie.
A total crotch fire.
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by
@theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
