Surfer rides 2.5 km-long tube in west Africa; films groundbreaking event on POV camera!

“Logging late-night hours online, I studied the the terrain, bathymetry, people, marine life, weather-patterns, the cost, travel, logistics…"

In this compelling video, see the German-Portuguese shredder Nikolaus von Rupp get barrelled for roughly two-and-a-half clicks at Namibia’s famous Skeleton Bay, which is roughly 25 kms south of the town of Swakopmund.

Von Rupp, who is thirty two, cannot live without the transcendence of tube riding, a place where he can lose his ego for a moment, the indispensable elevator that raises his phallus to its fullest height.

Skeleton Bay, as you know, was  brokered to the world by a magazine and a computer nerd in 2007.

The Google Earth challenge was a Surfing magazine initiative to shoot a little out of the box, readers using the then new Google Earth tech to discover secret waves.

Deal was, you tell the mag, they let you join a photo shoot to the joint.

Brian Gable, an IT specialist, was a runner-up to the contest in 2007 (a wave in Western Sahara was chosen though no trip was made).

His loss drove him nuts.

“From that moment, I committed to nothing else,” Gable wrote. “Logging some serious late-night hours online, I focused on studying the country, the terrain and bathymetry, the people, the marine life, weather-patterns, the cost, travel, logistics, etc. I corresponded with locals halfway around the world. Obsessed and possessed, I selfishly put personal and professional duties aside and spent my days formulating the ultimate package for the ultimate magazine surf trip. To me, it wasn’t just a free adventure for myself. It was a chance to prove that the gem I found not only stood up to every other world-class setup, but was on the very short list at the top. Then, on Wednesday, Sep 19, 2007 at 10:03 AM, I got the call. First prize, the Indians take the pennant, the whole freakin’ enchilada!”

Skeleton Bay, of course, is now a photo studio, Von Rupp just one of dozens of pro’s squeezing its sides.

Better than snorting crystal blow, as old-timers used to say.

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World’s smartest surfer Nathan Florence reveals mind-blowingly simple hack for surfing one of Australia’s best waves without crowds!

“It’s literally firing but since Surfline didn’t say we can’t go out there!”

Nathan Florence, the Prince Harry lookalike brother of surf Olympian John John Florence and who is rightly lauded as the “world’s smartest surfer”, has revealed his mind-blowingly simple hack for surfing The Box empty.

The Box, of course, is a “slab” wave just north of Margaret River Main Break, a vastly inferior wave to The Box but where a tour event is held every year.

In the latest instalment of his excellent YouTube series, Florence explains the key to surfing The Box without the flotilla of media in the channel and its accompanying flotsam in the lineup.

“This funny thing happens,” says the extremely intelligent and capable Florence, “…if no one is out at The Box no one will paddle out. As soon as people paddle out the whole CT jumps on it. This morning we waited… everyone goes to the other surf spots, The Box is empty none is out, it’s pumping, spitting barrels…now that we waited everyone is committed to the other spots.”

Here, Florence, who is twenty-nine, takes the viewer into his confidence.

“Tactical. It’s literally firing. If they would just look at it they would see spitting barrels but since it’s not forecasted…”

And, here, the viper’s tongue, oozing with sarcasm, drops to a whisper for added effect,

“Surfline didn’t say (so) we can’t go out there!”

Essential-ish.

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Surfers flock to wild decades-old design that promises to destroy your ability to ride a normal surfboard ever again, “If loving you is wrong I don’t want to be right!”

The ionic design by San Clemente's Commie-hating soccer-mom lookalike Matt Biolos, the 5'5" round nose fish!

I loved the Lost fish with its aggression and its warmth and its volatility when I first tasted its meat in 1999.

Matt Biolos’ board, the round-nose-fish, was different from the prevailing wisdom of the time, even among the early fishes. The 5’5″, as ridden by Chris Ward and Cory Lopez, turned a generation on to the idea that a performance board could be kinda kooky looking, a pointed nose but with a forward wide point and all wrapped up with a regular pulled-in 14″ tail (and radically thin at 2 1/16″). It’s a combination that, even now, some shapers don’t get, sending devils out on those thick and straight-railed cruise ships with 20″ tails.

“Before the RNF, I was that shaper guy who paints rad stuff and makes surf party vids,” Matt Biolos told me. “It afforded me the opportunity to get good surfers on my boards without them really needing to risk using them in contests. It bought me time as a designer to learn to get better. It made it possible for me to travel the world as a shaper. Once the design hit, I was immediately getting calls from around the world to come shape. Europe, South Africa, Australia, it all happened after the RNF.”

Of course, once you ride one you can never get off ‘em such is the addiction of easy speed, glide, turning, its ability to masquerade a lifetime of bad habits while developing new ones that’ll keep you off regular boards forever.

In episode four of Lost’s six-part video series that documents the controversial design, once described as an “evil clown that kills children” watch Kolohe Andino, Michael Rodrigues, Coco Ho, Kirra Pink and Luke Davis along with the CT tour’s late bloomer Yago Dora “carving, twisting, slipping sliding, spinning, driving, gouging and gliding-around sunny summer time California.”

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Go-for-broke Bakersfield surfer Dane Reynolds releases latest riposte to the milquetoast horror of the WSL’s “pandering bullshit that’s ruining surfing!”

The famous daddy-body is heavy yet when he surfs he becomes like a cowboy of the Westerns: ready to fire his guns at the drop of a hat…

Dane Reynolds, the thirty-seven-year-old father of three and former world number four surfer from Bakersfield in California, has released his latest riposte to what he succinctly describes as the WSL’s “pandering bullshit.”

The two-and-a-half-minute short Offshores finds Reynolds, whose quasi-rural Carpinteria idyll was shattered seven months ago when Travis and Kourtney Barker-Kardashian splurged $16.5 million buying Conan O’Brien’s redundant beach house, trading waves with another local surfer Matt McCabe.

The famous daddy-body is heavy, massive like the country that gave him birth, short arms, dainty hands, yet when he surfs he becomes like a cowboy of the Westerns: ready to fire his guns at the drop of a hat, getting into a rage at the least provocation.

Brief, but essential.

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Brother of US Olympian John John Florence shucks “Jan Brady” middle sibling curse with hall of fame “mutant” session at the Mexican Pipeline!

“Needless to say things got a little crazy LOL!”

For a very long time, the two-time world champion John John Florence was the sun around which the famous surfing family orbited, the world barely aware of his remarkable brothers although somewhat cognisant of his mama Alex.

Over the course of the last year, middle brother Nathan, who bares a striking resemblance to Prince Harry (red hair) as well as a passing likeness to Jan Brady (piebald skin), has ridden, and filmed, several “waves of the year” as well as two “best barrels ever”.

In the latest instalment of his not-to-be-missed YouTube series, described as “like a gilded bomb invited to rest among the lilies of the field” and filmed on May 17 at Puerto Escondido aka the Mexican Pipeline, Nathan continues his life as a fiercely living desperado.

For the first time ever seen in surf, his POV footage splits the screen with the land angle, Nathan prowling the lineup like a tiger. Your heart will pound at the closeout sets he must negotiate and the lefthander without a floor.

Nathan, who is twenty eight, may be mad but he is serious about it. And he may be without a soul. But he is not without a heart.

Essential.

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