Innholdsfortegnelse for #363 Waves i Surfing Life

Throughout history, the ocean has been a terrifying protagonist. Characterised by amplitude, wavelength, frequency and speed, a wave transfers energy through matter or space. The sea achieves both: we usually hear it before we see it. A “reverence” for waves is a common thread that ties cultures around the globe. Past. Present. Future. The ocean is fluid yet constant in its connection with saltwater people. Some call it superstition. Others call it faith. Still, sacred chanting comes in many forms. The Gilbertese peoples of Micronesia can only learn these hallowed chants at sea. In bygone years, Irish sailors would “power chant” to the inhabitants of the maritime Otherworld.1 On the World Tour, Gabriel Medina, Italo Ferreira and Filipe Toledo pray before heats. Plenty of other pro surfers—WSL competitors and freesurfers—meditate…

Would surfing have such a high impact if masterful sharpshooters didn’t capture that split-second moment? They’ve gifted us time to pour over the details: an aggressive power hack with spray tagging the sky in graffiti-artist attitude and muscles rippling in that gravity-defying flash of athletic power and prowess. Andrew Shields is one of those masters who’s been gracing pages of surf mags for decades. Join us as we quiz Shieldsy about how he got to this juncture in his professional life. When did you start surfing? 15 years of age. Grade 10 at school. I went to school in Brisbane (until Grade 12, when I moved to the Gold Coast) and was heavily into tennis until the surfing bug took hold. When did photography start? I got a Canon camera…

Pure gold. That’s what sand is to surfers. Why else do we call a collection of sand a “bank”? Like we’re off to plunder sunken treasure when a mate calls about a “new bank on the simmer”. Banks of various colours have endless shapes, sizes, and formations. On searing days in Bali or Tahiti, we sprint over the fine black iteration for fear of sizzling the soles. In other parts of the tropics, it sparkles so bright we can barely turn an eye to it. But one thing it is not: stable. So, when the elements align and Huey sends swell to roll and break over the local coastline’s congregations of sand, we surfers make the most of it. While that bank might look like a consistent “factory of fun”…

Will surf movies ever go back to hard copy like DVDs? I don’t think so. So, no, I wish they would go to the vinyl retro sort of thing. But I don’t think music will ever go to CDs, and I don’t believe big movies will go back to DVDs; you’d have a better chance of VHS than you do DVD. What styles of surf movies do you see happening in the next 10 years? The style of surf movies I see in the next 10 years will be fascinating because the technology allows a lot of cultures around the world that have embraced surfing differently to tell their story. So whether it’s Africa, you know, India, or Vietnam—all these sorts of remote places that you aren’t used to seeing…

The 2022 WSL Championship Tour has been the most talked about iteration of the “Dream Tour” since the inception of a pro-surfing tour way back in 1976. There has always been plenty of tour talk in lineups and beachside parking lots in the past, but these days, with social media soapboxes, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, and broadcasts, it seems like everybody has something to say about competitive surfing’s premier product. Most surf fans consume and experience the WSL’s Championship Tour purely through the WSL broadcasts and couldn’t care less about the politics, controversies, drama, and behind-the-scenes stuff that happens on tour. It’s true. The vast majority of the surfing world who tune into surf events just want to see great surfing in epic waves. Of course, that doesn’t always happen. Still,…

In high school, by far my favourite physics classes were the ripple tank experiments. Anyone remember those? We’d be given a square tray of shallow water a bit bigger than a Scrabble board with a couple of little motors driving horizontal bars rapidly up and down to generate ripples—a wave pool for ants! We’d study how these wave patterns intersected, and through the mists of time, I can still recall one central principle: when two peaks intersect, a peak of double their height is generated. Think of Iluka Breakwall, for instance, or other waves that bounce off rock groynes. The incoming swell collides with the side wave off the rock wall, and suddenly, a three-foot swell becomes a crazy, rearing, six-foot A-frame peak. “It was like I was on bass…

Mavericks is a monster, but unlike the monster tales and scary stories you heard as a child, this monster is very real, and if you face it, there’s a chance you will be eaten alive. Mavericks came into the collective consciousness of the surf world in 1990, when Jeff Clark decided to show the world the monster he had been hiding beneath his bed since the late 1970s. Centuries before Jeff Clark bravely challenged this aquatic behemoth, alone, Pillar Point and the Half Moon Bay area was inhabited by the Ohlone Native Americans who lived in harmony with the land and no doubt held the booming, crashing waves of the area in high regard and like surfers of today, with the utmost respect and fear. Shell mounds, cooking stones, and…

When we told Brazilian-born Pedro Gomes he’d won Photo of the Year, his response was unquestionably enthusiastic: “I am so stoke-ed.” Much like how Italo Ferreira has brought this Brazilian-accented expression to surf fans around the world, we are “stoke-ed” to introduce this talented lensman to you. Pedro shot his first photos using his family’s camera at a young age, but his professional photographic journey began in Sydney, Australia, in 1998. At this stage, he hadn’t entered the surf photography realm. Instead, he focused on studio and commercial photography, which set an excellent foundation for surf photography. By using a variety of cameras, lenses, settings, and lighting, Pedro quickly developed the proficient skills needed in the surf arena. Photographing models is similar to surf photographers working in trying conditions where…

Mountainous waves cause the bravest warriors to respect fear in a unique way, because mortality grasps at their jellied spines. Holddowns require superhuman lungs, as whitewash threatens to tear limbs from bodies of big-wave surfers. Bring shallow reefs, rock shelves, and remote locations into the equation, and disaster is ready to detonate. With every take-off, big-wave surfers run the risk of dislocations, perforated eardrums, paralysis, and in the case of Sion Milosky—and too many others—death. On March 16th, 2011, the surfing community lost a respected waterman, a young father and a beloved friend, Sion Milosky. This was seventeen years after the drowning of big-wave icon Mark Foo. Both men were surfing the infamous Mavericks, off the coast of Northern California. And unfortunately, big waves mean big risks. Mavericks isn’t the…