Table of contents for No. 576 in Tracks

While Christmas is well and truly in the rear-vision mirror you probably have fond memories of a family lunch, maybe even a few fun little waves ridden in the morning to work up an appetite before unwrapping the presents. Things didn’t quite play that way for Kauaian big-wave specialist Titus Kinimaka back in 1989. Thirty-four years old, and at the zenith of his career as a big-wave rider, Kinimaka had his heart set on winning the Eddie Aikau Invitational and had spent months preparing for the event with a winter-long waiting period. When a massive swell showed up for Christmas Day on the North Shore, Titus saw it as a gift and was up at three a.m. getting prepared. He paddled out at sunrise and by most accounts attacked the…

STEVIE NOBLE IS INTERIM RAT CHAMPION INVOLVING SURFERS FROM AUSTRALIA, SOUTH AFRICA, U.S.A., EUROPE, BRAZIL AND NEW ZEALAND. THE OLD CHESTNUT OF ‘NOTHING BEATS A BARREL’ WAS THE TALE OF THE TAPE. Stevie applied mild quiver sizing to a local A frame and slotted into a tube fest in the middle of a pack. Barrels galore, deep. No hustle or hassle, just commonsense lineup positioning. An attached note came with his video submission, ‘A bit of a miracle unfolded’. But it was no miracle, merely the right board helped by a smart mind. Two inches more for paddle power and entry speed – and the younger brother of the late great James Noble could shut the gate. The adjacent frame grab illustrates the free form situation, threading a crowd. This…

Dom Mosqueira spent his youth bouncing between the warm, hollow A-frames of Mexico’s Puerto Escondido and the frigid confines of Canada. Surfing was always a consuming passion, whether he was spearing through Puerto tunnels or making the long drive to New York and New Hampshire from Canada to score hurricane swells. Although Dom got the photography bug the moment his dad put a camera in his hand, initially he didn’t marry his two great loves – surfing and photography. After studying photography for three years in Canada, he ditched the cold and headed to the Caribbean to cover sailing and somehow wound up shooting celebrity weddings for Richard Branson. Although it was a sweet gig, Dom felt creatively stifled, and embarked on a sailing trip around Tahiti aboard a catamaran…

THEY SAY A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS. IF THAT’S TRUE, THEN THIS TIMELESS IMAGE OF A SORE AND SORRY LOOKING DWIGHT PASTRANA DRAGGING WHAT REMAINS OF HIS SURFBOARD UP THE BEACH AT PIPELINE CONTAINS A WHOLE BOOK. AN APT TITLE OF WHICH COULD GO SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF ‘THE HIGHS AND LOWS OF SURFING PIPELINE, BUT MAINLY THE LOWS’. Moments before this shot was taken the 19-year-old Puerto Rico raised, Maui residing, Dwight, had packed one of the biggest tubes of the insane early season Pipe sessions of late 2019. Had he of come out, which he was a was millimetres away from doing, it would’ve been a Wave of the Winter contender, but sadly he didn’t, and this was the result. As Chrissy Amphlett sang in…

WHEN: November to February has traditionally been the peak period for swell but you can score on the North Shore on the fringes of the season in October and March. The longer you can spend there the better as it increases the likelihood of scoring conditions that are compatible with your desires– big and scary or small and punchy. It also means more time to sample the multitude of waves, which work in varying conditions. Many surfers like to combine their trip with the Pipe Masters waiting period between December 8 and 20. Most of the WQS surfers have cleared out by this time so the total pro-surfer numbers are down, but the stretch from Off the Wall to Pipe is monopolised by WCT surfers and North Shore specialists. If…

My first winter on the North Shore was in 1982. My brother and I stayed at a little beachfront cottage at Log Cabins. It was a classic surf flophouse, festering with boards, leashes, moldy towels, empty beer cans, half-eaten tins of Spam, towers of dirty dishes, and mosquitoes – lots of mosquitoes. At least seven unemployed surfers in their mid-20s lived there. They’d come from the mainland to ride big waves. There was talk of a major swell coming in a few days. In the interim, they surfed the wonky peaks at Log Cabins, but mostly they partied. I have an indelible memory of our housemates gathered around the kitchen table playing poker, a bottle of Jack Daniels tipping into coffee cups, Blue Oyster Cult’s ‘Fire of Unknown Origin’ blaring…

NOW WE ALL KNOW JOHN JOHN NUDGED OUT KELLY FOR AN OLYMPIC SLOT AND WILL BE CHASING GOLD IN 2020, BUT IF MEDALS WERE TO BE GIVEN OUT FOR BEST ALL-ROUND PERFORMANCES OUTSIDE THE WCT IN 2019, IT SEEMS NATHAN FLORENCE WOULD BE THE MOST LIKELY RECIPIENT OF THE TOP HONOURS. While John John went under the knife and nursed his wounded knee, Nathan ensured the Florence name was permanently in the spotlight. In the last year he has graced the cover of Tracks, chased down swells in every corner of the globe, put in notable performances on the Big Wave Tour and made his You Tube channel one of the most watchable surf portals on the net. Part of Florence’s allure lies in the fact he knows how to…

THE SHIPPER SURFBOARDS AD IN THE FIRST ISSUE OF TRACKS – OCTOBER 1970 There was no ‘Shipper Surfboards’… it was a combination of ‘Shane’ and ‘Nipper’ and it definitely tells you something about the times that Shane Stedman and Nipper Williams agreed to it. It was a double page spread in the first issue. It was madness. This was the text we ran with the ad: ‘We’d like to announce the formation of Shipper Surfboards (but honesty forbids)’ NIPPER:… Shane & I had occasion to share a double bed at Bells last Easter. This blew everyone’s minds because they couldn’t believe that two rival manufacturers could be such good friends. If I had a choice I would have preferred to sleep with someone else but the accommodation situation at Easter…

There were lots of big changes during my winters at Ke Iki Hale. When I first started staying there, Rabbit and the ‘Bustin’ Down The Door’ crew were fading out, while Carroll and Curren and Kong and Occy were peaking. Soon after came the first tremors of the Momentum Generation. I remember sharing a Ke Iki bungalow with a 16-year-old Kelly Slater. We ate entire pints of Häagen-Dazs in a sitting, and stayed up late drawing on our boards with coloured pens. Today, the Log Cabins stretch is upscale, gentrified, Airbnbready. There are fewer full-time residents and a lot more tourists. But the soul of the North Shore prevails, it’s just harder to find. A few backyards down from Ke Iki Hale, I ran into an old tour buddy who…

Publishing a book on a much loved surf spot off the beaten track creates a minefield of considerations. Although the breaks referenced in this book by Christo Reid have been surfed since the 1960s, there is still a conspiracy of silence to protect the solitude of the region. For this reason, as well as the aesthetics, the book deals only with the first twenty-five years of surfing at this legendary place, and does so with an artist’s eye. Away from the pressures faced by surf magazines to feature the latest and greatest, this book is a poetic journal celebrating the early years, while attempting to capture the mystique of where the desert meets the sea. Christo’s connection to this wild country on the edge of the Nullabor stretches back to…

POP MUSIC IS RARELY A FITTING REFERENCE POINT FOR TRAGEDY BUT AS AUSTRALIA WAS SET ABLAZE OVER THE FESTIVE SEASON, THE MELANCHOLY CHORUS OF THE 1983 TRACK ‘CRUEL SUMMER’ HAD A HAUNTING RESONANCE. IT’S A CRUEL, (CRUEL), CRUEL SUMMER. Lives and livelihoods have been lost, homes destroyed, and wildlife wiped out as we endure a summer of endless flames and apocalyptic skies. In a period normally reserved for celebration and holiday fun, a sombre mood has descended upon the nation. The dire situation inspired an array of heroic responses, and while there will never be enough praise for our professional and volunteer fire-fighters, individuals from all walks of life, including surfers, answered the call for help. On the south coast of NSW heavy-wave specialist, Scott Dennis, made good use of…