Surf Cat

Chlorinated perfection or a sign of (traditional) surfing’s demise? Photo: Jeremiah Klein

We’ve got some disturbing news for the purists: Wavepools aren’t going anywhere. In fact, they’re going everywhere. The new year rung our bell with news that the WSL had acquired land and assets from NLand in Austin, TX; while right down the trail in Waco, the BSR Surf Resort made a full recovery from its brief, brain-eating-amoeba scare, reopening to a frothing public in March with cleaner water and bigger air sections like the “Freak Peak.” Meanwhile, the Chinese National Surfing Team trained in the Henan Province’s clandestine, $26 million Qingfeng Extreme Sports Center. And as soon as an inherently high-water table put the kibosh on the WSL’s “wave basin” in West Palm Beach, FL, rumors began circulating about a 35-acre wave park coming to Oceanside, CA, and a new DSRT surf pool opening in the Palm Desert in 2021.

WATCH LIVE: BSR Cable Park Surf Cam

In a desperate effort to stop these American wankers, “Occy’s Peak” broke ground at Surf Lakes in Queensland around the same time as the Sunshine Coast set the table for their own $100 million Surf Ranch. Meanwhile at Surf Ranch proper, the Freshwater Pro came and went again, and it’s on the CT schedule to come and go again in 2020. As for the other best-wavepool-in-the-world, the BSR Surf Resort hosted two major competitions — Stab High and the Rip Curl GromSearch Nationals — before Wavegarden Cove tech stole the airwaves with two monstrous creations: “The Wave” became available to everyone in land-locked Bristol, England; and “The Beast” unveiled perhaps the sketchiest artificial slab to date via URBNSURF Melbourne.

Grant “Twiggy” Baker’s $75,000 wave. Photo: Hallman/WSL

The tour is dead. Long live the platform. The WSL Big Wave Tour was never really a tour anyway. More like a logistically unfeasible, financially unviable, two or three-pronged nightmare for everyone involved. Last season, both Nazaré and Jaws ran within 10 days of each other, suffocating the League’s coverage. So, in August they unveiled their enhanced, centralized Big Wave “platform,” rather than a tour per se. “The WSL’s new platform will feature four distinct areas, in addition to year-round content: the Strike Missions series, the Jaws Big Wave World Championships at Pe’ahi, the Nazaré Tow Challenge, and the Big Wave Awards,” the WSL explained. “The idea is to go to different places, instead of the same three places in the Northern Hemisphere,” Pat O’Connell added. “Whether it be a giant swell in Tavarua, Tahiti, or elsewhere. The unfortunate part is that we won’t be running an event at Maverick’s. But we want to create a better world for Big Wave surfing.”

WATCH LIVE: Nazaré Surf Cam

Perhaps it was divine justice, then, that the final incarnation of the BWT was won by the oldest contender in the field: 45-year-old South African veteran, Grant “Twiggy” Baker, who left a three-time World Champ, and then a couple months later at the WSL Big Wave Awards, a $75,000 Ride of the Year/Biggest Paddle winner for the 60-foot cathedral he’d packed at the 2018 Jaws Challenge (where, incidentally, Billy Kemper won his third Jaws title before winning his fourth this December). “I’m the older guy, and I’m not the most skilled guy in this field,” Twiggy humbly told Surfline. “I have no idea how I did this, to be honest. But I did it.”

Justin Quintal, the 2019 World Longboard Tour champion. Photo: Tim Hain/WSL

The platform is dead, long live the tour. Perhaps it was the rather disproportionate popularity between the WLT and the Vans Joel Tudor Duct Tape Invitationals that forced a renewed focus on traditional longboarding in the competitive realm. Perhaps not. Regardless, the WSL’s new Longboard Tour launched its four-event circuit this year — with contests in Noosa, Australia; Galicia, Spain; Long Island, New York; and ultimately, the Taiwan Open World Longboard Championships — the latter of which awarded 10,000 ranking points and $60,000 prize purse for both the women’s and men’s divisions. “This is a major step for the WSL to grow its professional longboard surfing platform, which it has decades of history with in crowning the sport’s world champions since 1986,” said newly appointed WSL Longboard Tour Director, Devon Howard, a passionate longboard lifer whose competitive success, cult following, publishing accolades and marketing experience made him a no-brainer for the job. “The additions of events in Noosa, Galicia and New York will now bring an exciting title race for this traditional discipline of waveriding to four distinctly different regions that are all well-suited for the world’s most stylish longboarders to display their impeccable footwork.”

Florida pro Justin Quintal has spent the better part of the last decade dominating the aforementioned Duct Tape comps, while entering the occasional WLT event. Quintal’s laser focus on the 2019 tour resulted in victories in Noosa and Galicia, a 9th in New York, and a 3rd in Taiwan, which ultimately earned Quintal his first World Title.

The truth is, every dog does not have its day. Not at Pipeline. A lot of ‘em bark. Some of ‘em bite. But plenty of puppies come in whimpering, then stray off forever. And if you think the CT judges are scrupulous during any given year, try impressing the O’Neill Wave of the Winter panel during a pumping North Shore winter. For much of the 2018-19 waiting period, WOTW was a two-dog race between revered North Shore waterman Mark Healey (who’s been scoring great days at Pipe for over two decades) and unassuming East Coast pro Cam Richards (who had to enter a contest, the Volcom Pipe Pro, just to get his first legit set out there). However, once the smoke cleared at Da Hui Backdoor Shootout, the last man standing was unsung Japanese gunslinger Keito Matsuoka, whose pig-dog prowess on a Second Reefer that broke on First Reef netted him the $25,000 award, immediately catapulting him into the surfing spotlight and up the pecking order of the greatest wave on earth.

WATCH LIVE: Pipeline Surf Cam

The WOTW judges passionately defended the ride — “The initial drop was super huge and steep and he was on edge the whole time,” Shane Dorian explained. “The way the barrel grows and gets super thick made the ride crazy technical. Being on his backhand adds to the intensity, along with the firehose spit.” “Full balls-to-the-wall commitment and positioning,” Pancho Sullivan concurred. “Easily one of the best waves I’ve seen on the First Reef at Pipeline in years. Wave of a lifetime!” — but the most telltale testimony came from Keito’s opposition, Mark Healey, who upon viewing the ride, quickly and publicly declared: “He just won.”

Photo: Jeremiah Klein

We can all agree: there is no greater rush than surfing. Except for one. That biochemical buzz you get from helping one of your fellow human beings: holding the door for an old lady, donating to charity, fostering a child… or just being there for someone who might be hurting. Some call that buzz “love.” Clinically defined “diseases of despair” like addiction and suicide aren’t anything new to our culture, but when 49-year-old Hawaiian hero and 2000 World Champion, Sunny Garcia, attempted the unthinkable this April, it rocked the surfing world off its psychosocial axis as we pondered questions like: How could such a powerful, confident warrior fall so far, so fast? What could we have done to prevent it? And where do we go from here? Increasingly outspoken about his battles with depression before the incident, Sunny ended up fighting for his life in an Oregon ICU before being moved to a California hospital, where he’s faced myriad complications while a Gofundme account, Support for Sunny Garcia and Family, went viral to help with expenses.

Meanwhile, a half a world away in Australia, Kurt Nyholm organized the first Surfers Unite to Fight Suicide event, which brought together former pros like Garth Dickinson, Toby Martin and John Shimooka to share their stories and create a fellowship while raising money for Head Space, a mental health charity. They hope their blueprint will spawn similar events and groups, or at the very least, start a conversation. “We all thought Andy (Irons) was 10-foot-tall and bulletproof, and we lost him,” said Martin. “Now we have Sunny (Garcia). So it has to stop, and we need to find ways to help… stop guys from becoming isolated, which is where the problems start.”

The sheer power of Hurricane Dorian, as seen from Flagler Beach, Florida. Photo: AJ Neste

The good news is, just as our knowledge of swells and surfcraft has grown exponentially in the last decade, our tribe’s more militant members have gotten this disaster relief thing down to a fine science. Case in point: an otherwise outstanding season for surf on the East Coast was tarnished from the start by a catastrophic meteorological event that dragged on for nearly three weeks. Major Hurricane Dorian was far and away the worst natural disaster in Bahamian history: $3.4 billion in damage; more than 70,000 displaced; thousands of homes destroyed; and at least 70 confirmed fatalities with the death toll expected to grow since 282 people are still missing. Blasting the Abacos on September 1st with maximum sustained winds of 185 mph, Dorian tied the 1935 Labor Day storm for the highest wind speeds ever recorded for an Atlantic hurricane before stalling just north of Grand Bahama. By the time the storm made its U.S. landfall, devastating parts of Ocracoke and Hatteras Islands, rescue and recovery efforts were well underway.

Waves for Water immediately mobilized to help the 62,000 people in dire need of clean water, while everyone from SIMA and YachtAid Global to World Central Kitchen and the Coastal Community Foundation’s Grand Bahama Disaster Relief Fund got down to NGO business. As reported by Surfline, “Inspirational stories keep filtering in about blue-collar heroes here, millionaire philanthropists there and all breeds of good samaritans coming out of the woodwork to rally for Dorian victims: buying generators, donating vessels, making food, guerrilla rescues… If only all these heartwarming tales could somehow offset the heartbreaking reality: Like Katrina or Sandy, Florence or Maria, Dorian will be remembered as a timeline divider — life before Dorian, and life after — like one of those abominable, terminal diseases we’ve yet to find a cure for. And likely never will.”

John John Florence standing tall at The Box (before nursing an injury for most of the year). Photo: Dunbar/WSL

Not to toot our own horn but… Oh, what the hell, pffttt… Hey, this thing’s broken! As the longtime official forecaster for the WSL, each and every individual on Surfline’s forecasting team recognizes the importance of putting the pros in the throes — window to window, season after season — on the Championship Tour. And sometimes, with the help of some cooperative League scheduling and a certain degree of atmospheric benevolence, we totally nail that shit.

Had you been following the bigs at any point during the 2019 season, you’d have to be lobotomized not to be impressed. Whether your thing is aerial surfing, power surfing, or big tuberide surfing (hopefully it’s all three), you must’ve noticed that the pros managed to score at every event: D-Bah wedges, maxing Bells, The Box… and that was just the first leg. “In terms of surf size and quality, from start to finish this was one of the better years we have seen on the WSL Championship Tour in recent memory,” affirms Surfline Director of Forecasting, Kevin Wallis. “Almost every event experienced at least one good-to-great day of surf, with a handful on the receiving end of strong surf nearly throughout the entire event: Bells, Margs, Brazil, J-Bay, Tahiti, Honolua and Pipe. Another interesting thing to note is that almost every comp, save for Brazil, exhausted its waiting period, with things wrapping up in the last day or couple days of the event window.”

The ever-enigmatic Kelly Slater leaves the door open for another year on tour in 2020. After all, he finished the year in the top 10, and won the Triple Crown…at 47 years old. Why stop now? Photo: Heff/WSL

HBO’s Emmy-winning nostalgia piece, Momentum Generation, cued what we were led to believe would be Kelly Slater’s competitive swan song, as fans pondered his impending retirement in 2019. But then the guy went and entered a QS6,000 in Manly, among other cryptic moves that compelled us to literally ask, “What the heck is Kelly doing?” and “How does Kelly solve a problem like Kelly?” Olympic aspirations came to mind — and to press — while Kelly indulged everything from an “Ain’t That Swell” podcast to another HBO doc, 24/7: Kelly Slater. In the jersey, however, he only conjured that old Slater magic a few times — his most spellbinding trick coming at the season’s end. He was consistent enough at all-time Haleiwa and massive Sunset to put a third Triple Crown of Surfing title in the picture — and a perfect 10 at Backdoor en route to a 3rd-place finish at the Pipe Masters sealed it. “I dunno,” he chuckled in his final post-heat interview of 2019, “I might have to do one more lap.”

We’ve gotta believe the return of G-Land to the schedule has something to do with it — the Dream Tour paradigm he clinched a quarter-century ago. Either way, his top-10 finish is mere testimony to how fitness, nutrition, lifestyle and relationships can extend an athlete’s lifeline. And that might ultimately be the GOAT’s greatest gift to the surfing world — even greater than the greatest wavepool. Put it this way: not only do we think Slater should do another lap on the CT, he should enter the bigger QS comps, too, just to make sure the numbers add up. Because if you’re already gonna be surfing pro at 48, why not go ahead and make it a cool 50? That’d be a record even more insurmountable than 11 World Titles.

The winningest Hawaiian CT surfer ever, Carissa Moore, all smiles. Photo: Sloane/WSL

What is it about your favorite surfer that makes them your favorite surfer? Is it their swagger or their personality, their good looks or their sponsors? Nah, it’s probably their style. The way they ride their surfboard: the waves they choose, the lines they draw, their body language… Everything else is merely decorative. But style isn’t what wins World Titles. Doing your job better than all the other players is. And no matter which surfers we choose to follow or like, champion or demonize, we’ve gotta accept the fact that the League is a business. Surfing is a sport. Business plus sport equals commodities, i.e. professional athletes. And like any professional athletes anywhere, surfers are governed by rules. Not fans.

Sometimes, though, we the fans get the best of both worlds — the polished and the raw, the edge and the fluff — while they the League get more bang for their buck. By clinching her fourth World Title, 27-year-old Carissa Moore has effectively become Hawaii’s most successful CT competitor ever — which basically means she really knows how to play ball. (And with the WSL finally granting the women equal prize-money, why wouldn’t she?) Of the ten events in the 2019 season, Carissa won three of ‘em (South Africa, France, Portugal), placed 2nd twice, got three 3rds and two 5ths. She never lost before the Quarters — no other competitor can claim that. But Carissa would never claim that, either. No, with her it’s all humility, love and aloha on land, and terminate with extreme prejudice in the water. The fact that she also straight-up rips harder than any other woman — that’s just a bonus.

*After winning her fourth World Title, Moore took to Instagram to announce that she’d be taking a break from the CT in 2020. Burnt out? Starting a family with her husband? Whatever the reasoning, fear not: she’ll return. “This break is a press refresh so that I can come back to the tour happier and more excited than ever in 2021,” Carissa wrote. Oh yeah, and also: “I will still be competing in the 2020 Olympics.” 

Your 2019 World Champ. Photo: Jeremiah Klein

Let’s go ahead and throw out the clunky, old metaphor once and for all. There is no Brazilian storm. Hasn’t been for years. Just two champions, a couple freaks, and a whole bunch of bubble boys playing hopscotch between the CT and QS. When a third of the tour is from one nation, it’s no longer a demographic. It’s a revolution, a siege. Then after a while, it becomes the status quo. Just like Kelly Slater is no longer a Florida surfer as much as the Kryptonian GOAT, otherworldly athletes like Gabriel Medina cannot be reduced to such petty co-ops.

The most dangerous competitor alive, Medina had one mission in 2019: to destroy everyone in his path, homeys included, join the same pantheon as Curren, Andy and Mick, then surpass them forever. And he’s never had any intention of bringing his passionate countrymen along for the ride. If Medina’s decimation of the Top-34 last season didn’t illustrate that point, then his eight-million-deep IG fans’ battery of Brazilian workhorse Caio Ibelli did, as that interference in Portugal might’ve been catastrophic to his myopic campaign. By the time the Pipe Masters came into view, Medina offset the pain of losing the yellow jersey by getting down to business. And his business was dirty. He didn’t come to Hawaii to negotiate a pecking order or make friends or impress the surf industry or enjoy his time in paradise — he came to unapologetically burn poor Caio, again, this time as a tactical move. After an emotionally taxing week of laydays and stewing scenarios, the reigning World Champ/Pipe Master immediately posted excellent scores, and Title #3 looked predestined. There was only one problem. On the other side of the bracket. In yellow. With Dorian in his corner, his sponsor running the contest, and even more fans on the beach than Gabriel Medina.

There is no Brazilian storm. There’s a whole bunch of bubble boys, a freak, and three champions — the latest being an inimitable, 5’5.5” David who beat an otherwise unbeatable Goliath through sheer willpower rather than cutthroat gamesmanship. His name is Italo Ferreira. His game is chaos. And his brand is fun.