Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2016 i Tracks

LADIES MAN IDENTIFIED! How goes it? Hey I was reading Tracks issue 553 and couldn't help but notice the photo in Bitsa on page 22 – The Lady Killer (pictured above). I immediately recognised him. Did you know that's an old Bondi Legend Eddy Rowlands! He ran with Ant Corrigan and Mark Rutherford's gang. He is still around but not surfing anymore. Also, if you look at the bigger picture on page 12, that chick on the left is the girl I took to my school formal. Now there's a history lesson for you! MAIL YOUR LETTERS TO... TRACKS MAG PO BOX 5555 ST. LEONARDS 1590 OR LETTERS@TRACKSMAG.COM.AU…

I can’t stand Adriano de Souza and Gabriel Medina, like they really, really make my blood boil. It even reached the stage in Portugal where I was supporting Jeremy Flores for fucks sake. I detest these two Brazo’s, does that make me a racist? Spud, Wamberal Well, unless you take that hate and apply it to every Brazilian, no. Many people do though, and there in lies the rub. If a Gaby paddling battle or a de Souza floater has your eyes bleeding with rage, how do you feel about Toledo and Pupo, who are basically impossible to dislike? Liking someone more just because they are from the same country as you is patently absurd, so as long as you keep your anger deeply personal, you’re sweet. I have a…

1 The African Kirra, Mozambique If you place your finger on the map of Africa and draw a line from Skeleton Bay straight across the continent to the east coast of Mozambique, you’ll find yourself at another sand-bottomed anomaly that barrels forever. Unlike Namibia though, the water is bath warm and the barrels are blue, earning it the moniker of the African Kirra. The name is equal parts truth and irony. Easily comparable in quality to its Gold Coast namesake, the wave breaks minus the ever-present crowd Kirra has become synonymous with. In fact if you do luck into a swell here, chances are you will be surfing alone. “When we first came here there was just a little shack on the beach selling beer,” says Ryan Ribbink, who leads…

The surf media and South Africa’s apartheid regime had a curious relationship from the very beginning, shuffling from denial to outrage and back again in the course of little more than a decade. When Bruce Brown shot there for Endless Summer in the early ‘60s, famously manufacturing the discovery of Cape St Francis, he showed black men walking along a segregated beach but made no mention of the fact that Nelson Mandela had just been jailed for standing up against apartheid. When Australian film-maker Bob Evans followed in his footsteps a few years later to make The Way We Like It he too ignored the inescapable realities of inequality in favour of a glowing surf travelogue. In the context of the times this was perhaps excusable, but Evo, no doubt…

In what others would call the peak of their careers, Tyler Wright is calling the beginning. But some would argue that it all began eight years ago. Tyler was fourteen and being chaired up the beach by Steph Gilmore and Jessie Miley-Dyer after winning the Layne Beachley Classic at Manly. Tyler, a grade eight student, defeated the world’s best surfers to become the youngest winner of any World Tour event. Everyone knew on that Sydney spring day that Tyler would continue to do great things in surfing. Her family knew it. Her hometown of Culburra on the south coast of New South Wales knew it. Tyler knew it, too. And there’s a timeline of events that begins and ends with family, mapping Tyler’s journey to this point where we can…

It’s Christmas morning, 2012 in Hawaii and Santa has sent the island folk a swell that is lighting up the outer reefs. From our backyard at Freddie Patacchia’s rental, a couple of hundred metres West of Sunset, we ogle at an ocean that writhes with menace and unfathomable force – colossal, twenty foot-plus peaks implode with thunderclap sound effects, side-winding whitewater collides like smashing road trains and a lurching shorey threatens to snatch at your ankles and drag you into the salty abyss. Three of us plan to spend the day drinking beer, eating ham, skyping home and watching the cruel sea do its thing from the supposed safety of our beachside backyard. (A couple of years later another swell will claim the site of our Christmas celebrations). The first…

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When I get back with Shane’s beer, the guys have warmed up, are now dangerously squeezing him. ‘So Shane, mate. How come you’ve named this wave out the front after yourself? When we were surfing up north this arvo and mentioned we surfed “Shane’s Sumatra” this morning, the local fellas didn’t have a clue what we were talking about. They said the right-hander out the front is called Karang Kepiting.’ ‘Karang Kepiting?’ Shane repeats. ‘Never heard of it.’ ‘What about that set up on the way to Padang? Supposed to be like a reverse Ulus. You know how we could find it?’ ‘How you could find it? Get on a bike, take a map and drive.’ Shane leans toward the guys, ‘Once you’ve crossed the eighth river after the island,…

FROM THE VAULT - TRACKS AT GUNPOINT We're not sure where this was taken, but scribbled on the back of the photo is: "This was taken seconds after these surfers asked their captors if a late session was out of the question." LISTEN - TROPHY EYES - CHEMICAL MIRACLE Newcastle lads Trophy Eyes explore some dark yet important issues while delivering a beautiful intensity with their sound. BEHIND PAGE ONE - RYAN MILLER "I’m an average photographer on my best of days so I overcompensate by working really hard. John has the talent but this year was the first year I saw him put in the hard work, and it was amazing to see it pay off. This image was shot the evening he won the title. I had raced…

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I have asked so many visitors to South Africa, and people I’ve met on my travels what comes to mind when thinking of a surf trip to South Africa. Those (above) are the three elements that get the most media average. Rightly so, as Dungeons is a legitimate big wave location, JBay is one of the best right-hand point breaks in the world, and the Mick Fanning shark incident clip has been seen over 22 million times on youtube. Chance are you’re not going to encounter a shark while surfing. Chances are that you might get the wave of your life at Supers though... South Africa however, is a whole lot wilder than these three factors of our surfing bubble. The best way to see the country is to blow…