Surf Nation

Lobsters, Wreckers and, er, Hermaphrodites: it must be Round 2 of the Surfboat League

Here's Andy Cox with a report on the action from the second round of the UKSRL. Andy is also in the midst of penning a few thoughts in favour of speedos - the one aspect of surfboat racing that I still can't get my head round.

Saunton Sands, on Devon’s north coast, played host to the second round of the United Kingdom Surfboat Rowers’ League (UKSRL). For those unfamiliar with the area, surfers living around Braunton are among the most blessed in the British Isles. Within a short drive are a number of quality reef breaks, the long walls of Woolacombe, the churning barrels of Croyde and the slow, rolling waves of Saunton. The latter are perfect for longboarders of a certain age - and surfboat racing.

The 20 crews arrived desperate for some decent surf. The 1-2’ dribble that greeted them, blown to pieces by a cross-shore gale, was not what had been ordered but no one said being a surfer of any hue in this country was easy (Ed's Note: Astute observers may contend that the image is not of 1-2' dribble blown to pieces by a cross-shore gale. They're right. Image courtesy of a UKSRL event last year.)

Of lifeguards, sex and the main peak (and other stray thoughts)

It had to happen. Since last Monday evening, when Harry and I caught Gwenver working very nicely thank you, we've had a succession of fun outings at Sennen Cove, myself on Steve Lynton's magic board and Harry either on my shortboard or his own TL2. The surf has been quite chunky at times, and I've even felt a little surfed out. But the roll had to come to an end, and so it proved this morning. We rocked up to see the main peak working well, with rights and lefts, at about mid-tide on the push. Just before we paddled out, the lifeguards designated the main peak as the bathing area and ushered everyone down to North Rocks. Once there, we found that it was onshore and it was rubbish. I caught precisely three waves and only one of them was any good (the term being used, here, advisedly). But out there, in the dross, I had plenty of time to think. Here were my reflections:

1. Lifeguards and bathing areas. Without wishing to put the cat among the pigeons, why do the lifeguards at The Cove keep deciding that best peak on the beach is the bathing area? Why can't they put the red and yellow flags up opposite the car park, which is surely a safer place for swimming? Today, hardly anyone was out swimming anyway, but a huge crowd of surfers was forced to compete for waves in one area which, at mid-tide, had lacklustre surf while the main peak/bathing area was serving up fun waves. I know, like and respect a lot of the lifeguards, but this decision has been made a few times so far this summer and I don't get it. Can anyone provide enlightenment?

2. Lifeguards and jet-skis. Even if there is a decent reason for designating the main peak as the bathing area, is it necessary to herd surfers out of it using a jet-ski? Jet-skis are doubtless invaluable in certain rescue situations, and they've proved their use in tow-in surfing, but otherwise they're noisy, hideous pollutants which should be used as sparingly as possible. No one likes being told to move from the one part of the beach that's working, but being told by someone on a jet-ski, in an exquisite, pristine place like Sennen Cove, just seems plain wrong. Again, what's the rationale? Anyone know?

3. Surfing and art. There's such a profound connection between surfing and art that someone ought to write a book about it. I would if I had the time, but as I get older there's no time for anything anymore, just work, work, work (and a bit of surfing). Fortunately, there is a website devoted to surfing and art, but in case the following artists aren't on it let me mention Ben Cook, who recently showed at The Eden Project, Stephen Read and Hannah Davies. Ben, pictured above with new MBE Chris Hines among others, needs no introduction to many of the surfing community in Cornwall. He's gearing up for a show at Cornwall Contemporary in Penzance in September, while Read and Davies - both of whose work is influenced by surfing and beach culture - are presently at Badcocks in Newlyn. If you're in the area, their Beach Voyeurs show is well worth checking out (Read's "Surf Club" is shown here, with Davies' "Low Tide Longboard"). Don't forget also The Surfing Museum's exhibition and, if you're in St Just, pop in to Cove regulars Mick and Allie's Windswept Gallery.

4. Ry Cooder. How good is this guy? I've just bought I, Flathead, the concluding CD to Cooder's California Trilogy. It's not as good as Chavez Ravine, but it's still streets ahead of most of anything else around lately (and a bit more together than Amy Winehouse appeared at Glastonbury over the weekend...).

5. Sex. It was so boring sitting in the line-up this morning that I even started to think about my 27th favourite sexual fantasy. Not for long, mind you -  three's a crowd in my experience, and at the Cove today, there were about 500 people in the water. Summer, doncha just love it?

Chris Hines awarded MBE

I'm never all that sure about official honours. What do they mean, who decides, why do they exist? Well, for once, I'm not troubled by any of these questions because whoever made the decision to award SAS co-founder Chris Hines an MBE got it right.

I met Chris (pictured on the left) while researching Surf Nation. He's bright, articulate and committed to making this world a better place. For many years a driving force behind SAS, recently Chris has been devoting his considerable energies via the Eden Project (working as its Sustainability Director) to the Eco Board.  Prior to his involvement in the Eco Board, Chris gave evidence to the select committees in the House of Commons and Lords and was selected as special adviser to the minister for the environment Micheal Meacher. He's known also for once chasing the UK's minister of the environment around the House of Commons with an inflatable turd, and helping to cause South West Water's PR manager to come close to breakdown by dumping a bag full of condoms and sanitary towels at his feet during a press conference, with the immortal words: "I think these belong to you."

Remarkably, Chris was awarded his MBE on his wedding day. "The happiest day of my life just got happier," he said. "It's also a great day for the environment, the oceans and for surfing. I'd like to thank all the people who supported SAS and the staff at Eden."

A fine achievement all round. Honours lists? A good thing. See below for the excerpt from Surf Nation in which I met Chris and check out his website to learn more about what he's up to now.

Surf News from The Surfing Museum

Pete Robinson drops me a line with some summer surfing news from The Surfing Museum:

Surfing and Art
Our latest exhibition, An Art History of British Surfing, is at the Fishing Heritage Centre in Grimsby from 28 June to 7 September, 2008. Art and surfing have been inextricably linked for hundreds of years, and this show looks at how both these elements combined to glide into British consciousness over the past few centuries.

From early sketches of surfers during the voyages of Captain James Cook in the 18th century and iconic hand sculpted wooden surfboards, to the flower power of the 1960s and garish fluorescent colours of the 1980s – paintings, posters, photography and film – An Art History of British Surfing is a visual feast. Also on show will be stunning replicas of ancient Hawaiian surfboards hand-carved by the Tom Pohaku Stone – a lecturer in Hawaiian culture and surfer of legendary status. You'll also be able to play our wonderful 1976 Surf Champ pinball machine - and help raise money for the British Surfing Museum at the same time.

Paddle Round the Pier
We'll be at this wonderful charity weekend on Brighton beach on the weekend of 5 and 6 July, 2008.

We will have a 1960s surfing beach display featuring our 1966 VW splitscreen van alongside our friends and sponsors Oxbow - come and say hello! This promises to be a great weekend for all the family down on Brighton seafront near the West Pier.  Plus there's the amazing spectacle of the Oxbow Endurance Stand Up Paddle race - a mere 10 miles from Worthing Pier to the West Pier... Pray for calm conditions in the English Channel!

'Surfing's Golden Age: the 70s Kodachromes' by Jeff Divine

For the first time in the UK, Jeff Divine's iconic 1970s imagery will be on display at the Crane Kalman Gallery - 38 Kensington Gardens, North Laine, Brighton BN1 4AL - 23 July to 31 August, 2008.
We'll have some original 1970s surfboards on show alongside Divine's stunning photos. Here's the press blurb on the show: "At a time when surfing is more popular than ever, Jeff Divine's work pays a fitting tribute to its golden years - a nostalgic and fascinating testimony to the style, the boards, the locations, the attitudes; and not just to the sport but to the way of life. The Seventies birthed a new generation of surfers, with a new language, new attitude and, with the advent of the shortboard, a new way of surfing. Divine captured the time in a comprehensive, on-the-spot fashion. Divine's colour saturated photography is drenched with purity and soul, and with a hint of 70s psychedelic spin. His vision was vibrantly tuned to the times and captured the free-spirited nature embodied by a sport in its adolescence."

Midsummer Swellboard Classic

I enjoyed a gorgeous early evening session at mellow, nicely working Gwenver a couple of nights ago - it still brings a smile to my face now. Likewise, these images of the Midsummer Swellboard Classic, held at Godrevy on Sunday. Mel Sedgwick tells me that "despite the 20mph onshore winds, we still had a great time - in fancy dress."

The event - one which evidently puts a premium on fun, with nul points for negative vibes - saw a stand-out performance by Hayle-based four-year-old Ollie Turrel, who, "dressed as a Bam Bam and with only a little help from his Mum," took overall 4th and 3rd in the Junior Boys contest.

Also at the same event, Surf4theSoul International Soulsurfers Surf Club presented the annual SoulSurfer of the year award to Keith Prowse and Dave Barnwell. This was a double presentation by which Keith received the award for last year, with Dave (not present, so not pictured) bagging this year's.

Other firsts were:

Fancy dress winner - the Adam Nightingale and Nancy Seer duo for their prison break outfit

1st Junior boys - Finlay Abbot Ellwood

1st Junior Girls -  Anna Steele-Perkins

Family Prize - The Pleasants from Newquay

Green surfer award - Jasmine Nevitt (just one point on the carbon footprint index)

Overall winner - Pete Williams (Shore Surf School)

The sponsors were: Splashography, The National Trust, Shore Surf School, Swell Surfboards, Dodgy Gear Clothing, Finisterre, Godrevy Cafe, Hager Vor, Natural Balance, Treviglas Surf Academy (who sent the beach marshalls), and, of course, the RNLI, who provided the lifeguards.

All good stuff, and with the reforming of Sennen Surf Club, there'll doubtless be more such frolics here in the far west as the (excellent, so far - but I've probably tempted fate) summer rolls on. (Just one last thing - excuse the formatting in this post. Something strange is afoot with it today.)

Still time to enter SAS Green Raffle - and win Jack Johnson tickets

I should have mentioned this a few days ago but there's still time to enter the annual SAS Green Raffle. No less a figure than Jack Johnson has donated 50 tickets to SAS (one of his favourite environmental campaign groups) for the UK leg of his tour. Throughout June, anyone who joins SAS or renews their membership through the SAS website (and quotes a designated promotional code) will be entered into a draw to win a pair of tickets to see Johnson, so check out the site now before the month is over.

You'll also be in with a chance of winning one of 15 green prizes including seven days' accommodation at the ‘Carbon Light’ La Lucertola Farmhouse in Tuscany, a Bodyglove Eco Wetsuit and a meal for two at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Restaurant, Cornwall.

Get your tickets now by visiting www.sas.org.uk.  The raffle draw takes place on 18 July 2008 and tickets must be returned by 16 July 2008.

The SAS fundraising raffle ticket costs 50p - protecting our oceans is... priceless.

Huck magazine Tom Curren interview

Huck came out recently with an interview by yours truly with Tom Curren. He was a great guy to meet and talk to as well as an inspirational surfer. The most stylish ever? Quite possibly. Here's the interview for those who may not have caught up with Huck yet (the pictures, by Sam Christmas, are excellent but you'll have to buy the mag to see them).

Hossegor, France, The small beach town is even more awash with the imagery of surfing than usual thanks to the highest-rated WQS event of the year, the Rip Curl Pro. Australia’s Shaun Candsell is the man of the moment, having won the event by beating 21-year-old Californian Dane Reynolds. Cansdell pockets a cheque for $20,000 and, if he has yet to fulfil the promise that saw him crowned ASP Rookie of the Year in 2006, he has surfed well enough to remind the cognoscenti that he should be a contender in the coming years.

Whatever Cansdell’s fate, he looks a little more media friendly than his compatriots in the notorious Bra Boys film, which showed in Hossegor’s tiny beachside square on the evening of the contest’s conclusion. The French audience seemed unsure of Sunny Abberton’s homage to the localism and testosterone endemic to the Sydney suburb of Maroubra, gasping with due reverence at the heaviest of oceanic hammerings courtesy of the Maroubra reef but greeting the film’s overt macho posturing with sang-froid edging - subtly enough, for this is France - to froideur.

The Bra Boys might not have found a home from home in Hossegor, but a dark, almost swarthy 43-year-old Californian paced with such feline ease along the promenade on the morning after the film’s screening that, to the casual observer, he looked as if he owned the place. Or rather, he ambled so effortlessly as to suggest that ideas of ownership – of materialism of any kind – were of the utmost irrelevance. He was unhurried and calm, relaxed and lithe; the antithesis, you might say, of the avatars of aggression in The Bra Boys.

Step forward, Tom Curren, arguably one of only three surfers to transcend surfing and etch his personality into mainstream consciousness. The others are Kelly Slater and Laird Hamilton, super-heroes to contemporary surfing and men whose considerable wealth is matched by finely-honed media awareness. Curren, though, is different. He’s from yesteryear. He’s famously reclusive. He once reputedly answered “Yeah” to every question put to him by a journalist. And yet he’s still one of the most charismatic sportsmen men on the planet. After all, how many people can say they’re paid just to be themselves?

Radio 4's Book at Bedtime is Breath

I'm indebted to Ed at Global Boarders, who alerts me to what is surely a first - Radio 4 selecting a book on surfing as its book at bedtime. There have been a slew of surfing books lately (and I'll tell you more about a couple that have landed on my desk soon), but the book in question is Tim Winton's acclaimed Breath. See this link for more info.

Meanwhile, has anyone noted that Italian Vogue's July issue features only black models? As editor Franca Sozzani put it: “I thought, it’s ridiculous, this discrimination. It’s so crazy to live in such a narrow, narrow place. Age, weight, sexuality, race - every kind of prejudice."

I couldn't agree more. Surfing magazines, nota bene?

Puerto Escondido on YouSurfTubes

A great site, if you've not encountered it yet, is YouSurfTubes. Here's some killer footage of Puerto Escondido to prove the point.

Dress (non)sense?

Why is it fashionable, in certain of surfing's offshoot sports, to wear a pair of boardies outside one's wetsuit?