This three-minute wipeout reel was filmed on the east
coast of Australia at a handful of photographic (and film)
staples.
In it, paddle-in surfers (mostly), behave as if they were
religious zealots dotted around the edge of a volcano, suddenly
diving headlong into the abyss as if to invoke a sense of the
divine.
What strikes me about the film, or more correct this montage, is
the chaos of the game. Men paddle down the face of a
ten-footer, do everything right, set a rail here, dodge a flared
lip there, only to be knocked for a loop.
Engrossing.
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Surfing in post-nuclear meltdown Fukushima:
“The Radiation is down and the surf is up!”
By Derek Rielly
"Great nature and great waves!"
Remember that damn earthquake and the tsunamis that tore
hell out of Japan in 2011? It was the biggest quake
to hit Japan in recorded history, and the fourth biggest in the
world since record-keeping began. A nine on the richter
scale.
Sixteen thousand dead, six thousand injured, a few thousand
disappeared.
In Fukushima, which is home to some fine waves and whose name
translates as Happy Island, the nuclear power plant overheated,
blew to pieces and showered the town with radiation. One hundred
thousand people fled their homes. The second-biggest nuclear
disaster after Chernobyl.
Not the sorta joint you’d imagine as a surf vacay.
But, as this video produced by the Olympic channel points out,
the waves still pump, the locals call the atmosphere “cosy and we
welcome other surfers” and you can stroll through stores and car
yards and schools that look the same as the day they were
abandoned.
This is the way they treat a man of talent and
real worth in America.
Griffin Colapinto in “I’ll shine like a
million suns if only you’ll love me!”
By Derek Rielly
Come for the laughs, stay for the surfing…
It says something about the sport of kings (and queens,
of course) that little quarter is given even to the very
talented.
In this sub-three minute clip featuring everyone’s fav rookie
Griff Colapinto at Lowers, you can see the way America treats a man
of talent and of real worth. Oh it’s just dreadful. Boards
here and there, aft and fore. The just-turned-twenty-year-old with
the rich voice of a large man forced to challenge beginners for
waves.
But Griffin is not a man to drop his lower lip or weep.
Why would you when you can surf like this?
When your heart is full why permit yourself to be
disillusioned?
As Griffin himself says, “Style is knowing who you are, what you
want to say and not giving a damn.”
Watch!
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Aggressive!
Full-length: A history of the “fucking
fish” surfboard!
By Derek Rielly
As told by Lost. "The impact on my life was
immense," says Matt Biolos.
I loved the Lost fish with its aggression and its
warmth and its volatility. First taste, 1999, last taste,
a few years ago. This thirteen-minute cut from Lost is a brief
history of the fish surfboard wrapped in blanket upon blanket of
archival footage of the Biolos interpretation of the early
twin-fins.
Biolos’ board, the round-nose-fish, was different from the
prevailing wisdom of the time (1995), 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.
“The tail as always the dirty little secret,” says Biolos. “It’s
the same width as a normal high-performance board was at the time.
And it was this lack of a big, wide tail that allowed the boys to
surf them in such radical waves.”
This board is now affixed to a wall in the …Lost office and if
you were ever thinking of making an offer for it, maybe you’re a
collector or an investor in such things, Matt says for four-gees
you’d probs have a sale…
What was the reason behind its creation?
Biolos: This board was made for Cory Lopez in the fall of 1995. The
reason I started making these was purely because Chris Ward asked
me if I would make him a “Fish”. This was over the phone in the
fall of ‘94 while Chris was in Hawaii. He said Tom Curren was on a
Fish and he wanted one. I had no idea what Chris was asking for,
really. I knew of The Lis-type fish (based on San Diego kneeboarder
Steve Lis’ twin-fins from the early ‘70s) and the Fireball Fish
(Australian Tom Peterson’s take in the ‘90s). This was before the
internet and The Surfers Journal type of historic surf
journalism so I went down to a local surf shop (BC Surf Shop,) and
checked out some classic twin fins from the 70’s that were hanging
on the wall and took mental notes. These boards we very MR-esque.
Most were late 70’s, early pre thruster 80’s twinnies. If you look
at this board, and our RNF (round nose fish) in general, you will
notice the actual nose is fairly pointy and the tail is kinda
pulled, not unlike the MR twins. The board pictured would be about
a year after the first one I made and it was definitely already
refined as I’d started riding these types of boards by then as well
and was getting them dialled. I was sorta working in a vacuum
‘cause so few people were making these types of boards at the
time.
It’s interesting ‘cause I always figured they were based
on a Lis or a Fireball… When Chris called me and talked
about Tom Curren on the fish we later found out that what he had
seen was Tommy surfing was one of the Peterson Fireballs. I didn’t
know it at the time and that’s why my fish is a nearly polar
opposite of those boards. It actually wasn’t until later when we
watched one of those Rip Curl Search videos that we saw Tommy on
the Lis-type kneeboard fish. Our board had little resemblance to
that board either. The width of my entire swallow, tip to tip, was
about as wide as one-half of the kneeboard tail. Unlike the MR/Reno
Twins, which I based my board on, I was using a single concave
under the front foot and then vee in the tail. This gave the flat
rocker board a really curvy rail line and allowed the radical turns
without the trackiness that was so prevalent in fishy designs in
the past and even later in the Lis rip-off craze that was to come.
There were others doing things, though. Kasey Curtis had a CI “Twin
Finner” that had an extremely pulled in baby swallow, which he
carved really well on. It was really right around the same time.
Like, summer ‘95.
Can you describe the reaction when it hit the
streets? Uh, people tripped out when you would show up
with them but once they saw you having fun on them it really piqued
their interest. This was just after those years of nearly everyone
riding incredibly lowvolumed, needle-nose, extreme rocker chips. Of
course, what Chris and Cory were doing on them, and Mike (Reola)
following them around with the video camera, is what made it
happen.
How many boards did you sell?How many
of the 5’5” (1998) movies did you shift? Oh, I don’t even
know. It sorta grew slowly. Then when the movie came out it just
exploded. I had to hire a few shapers and start scanning my designs
into the computer for the first time. It was on. The crazy thing
is, after that movie came out, ever shaper’s business went up.
Shapers all over the world were calling me and saying thanks for
making that movie ‘cause all of a sudden, everyone needed a new
surfboard.
How does the original 5’5” compare now?Y’ridden one lately? Wow, I have not. I usually
burn through a board model and once I feel good about it, I tend to
go and punish myself developing new ones. But, interestingly
enough, the classic holds up. It’s Mason’s favourite of all our
fish. I made all the boys a couple of them about four years ago
when we filmed 5’5” Redux. Gorkin (Aaron Cormican) and Mason both
nailed full sections on the remakes I did them. In fact, I had one
of Cory’s from ‘96 all repaired and fixed up, then Gorkin went and
nailed a full seg on that thing. The board was about 13 years old
at the time. We still make five, maybe 10, per month in the
summer.
How has this design impacted current board
design? Shit, I know it made an impact. There isn’t a
shaper alive who won’t at least admit that. For me, the impact on
my life was immense. It put me on the map. It was the breakthrough
for me as a designer and shaper. Before the RNF, I was that shaper
guy who paints rad stuff and makes surf party vids. 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.
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Watch Jeff Raglus in “The surfer
immortalised as Pop Artist!”
By Derek Rielly
Deceptively unassuming surfer one of the great
contemporary sculptors and painters!
The surfer as artist is a familiar line. For
some, it’s a fad to wash off the pharmaceutical fuzziness,
others a life.
I’ve been collecting the work of surfer, and
painter/sculptor/musician Jeff
Raglus for a little past a decade. Collecting isn’t
quite the right word. For a few years there I had a
surplus of cash (two jobs, new biz) and wanted to buy art not for
capital gain, which is what the savvy art collector chases, but
work that pleased. Splashes of oil and inspiration I could stare
and wonder at.
And one turned into three turned into five.
A few years back, Raglus hit me up and said he was selling one
of his sculptures for two thousand dollars, a two hundred pound
carving called Mr Pinky. Took two strong men (i.e. not me)
to drag it into my house. I look at it now and it sinks me with
happiness.
This short movie examines the life of a man who ranks among the
most accomplished in the game, and who has avoided the frenzied
fantasy life of money and the city.