Sommaire pour Issue 583 de Tracks

Like a trip back in time to simpler days, it was actually a modern-day concern for the waste impacts of surf culture on the ocean that led to the invention of the planet’s most sustainable surfboard – a beautiful retro wooden board created by the Aussie founders of Sine Surf. “Sine Surf was born from my own experience in surfing. I snapped a foam board on its very first surf early in 2020 and began researching why they were so disposable and wasteful; I was drawn to the beauty and durability of wooden surfboards. Most of the surfboards marketed today as being wooden, still use foam and fiberglass and have no sustainable advantage,” says Sine Surf co-founder Emile Theau. With a University of Sydney degree in chemical engineering and nanotechnology,…

ANDY TAKES THE TRIFECTA AT THE 2003 PIPE MASTERS Kelly Slater and Andy Irons on the stage after the final of the 2003 Xbox Pipeline Masters run at Pipeline Beach on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii. Irons not only won the Pipe Masters but also sealed the 2003 ASP World Professional Surfing Championship and the Hawaiian Triple Crown Title. Joel Parkinson (AUS) was runner up to Irons while Phil MacDonald (AUS) was third and Slater finished in fourth. Kelly went into the last event of the year leading the ASP ratings, with Andy the defending World Champion needing to win the Final to claim it for a second year in a row. With the way the draw was set up, they were only ever going to meet in the…

I blame surf mags for filling my head with adventure and exotica during my formative years. It became hard to sit still just knowing Lagundri Bay existed somewhere outside the window. The majesty of Jeffrey’s Bay didn’t just fight for my attention with equations and essays. It delivered a knock-out punch. Striving for a career on dry land, or worse, some sort of office job, seemed illogical. I covered my school books in surf pictures, doodled in the margins and strived to stay awake. All I wanted was to get gone. The siren call of the road was tinnitus in my ears, humming away, impossible to ignore. My first overseas surf was at Sunset Beach. I couldn’t believe it. My mate, Fast, paddling out beside me, couldn’t believe it. It…

On the tombstone of US trailblazer, Tom Blake, winner of the first major surfing tournament in 1928, it reads “Nature equals God.” It’d be hard to find a surfer – religious or not, who wouldn’t agree with Tom’s post-mortem sentiment. We paddle out to be connected to the natural world. We are hyper-sensitive to the wind at our back, the strength of the current underneath us, the seafaring birds above and marine life below. We are scholars of the horizon. Marvelling at how these swell lines were created by wind half a world away. We owe everything to nature. We are truly privileged to regularly be out in it. That’s why we come out in numbers to protect our natural world when it is threatened. We stopped the Great Australian…

01. Lightbox SURFER: JARED MELL PHOTO: FEDERICO VANNO Between 1854 and 1862 naturalist and explorer, Alfred Wallace, schlepped his way across Indonesia and decided that the archipelago should be cut in two by an imaginary line running between Lombok and Bali, and Borneo and Sulawesi. Lombok and Bali are only 35km apart but Wallace had observed that on either side of the Lombok Strait, where his line ran, there were distinct differences in the flora and fauna – tigers and tropical birds roamed to the west, while marsupials and cockatoos populated the east. Lombok’s plant an animal species shared much in common with Australia, while Bali was home to an entirely new faunal universe. Thus, for Australian surfers Bali has always felt like crossing over into another world. Despite the…

I had gone straight on a draining righthander and now found myself bellyboarding towards the shore as the rest of the set rattled off unobserved down the dust clogged point behind me. Walking up the soft sand, I could hear the waves; but I never looked back, I was over it. In the days preceding this moment, I’d disembarked from one surf trip straight into another and had found myself struggling to surface from an existential rip current. In a gloriously self-indulgent moment, I had chosen to leave my travelling partners in a remote corner of the Atlantic to go on a goose chase; suffering from a severe case of FOMO that had started to overcome all the rational parts of my mind. The object of my desire – a…

If someone asked you to articulate what it means to dedicate your life to surfing, you might point to Rusty Miller as the ultimate case study. Rusty started surfing in 1953 and cut his teeth in the breaks around Encinitas, in Southern California. While he idolised Oceanside’s power-surfing pioneer, Phil Edwards, Rusty also made his presence felt in L.A.’s Malibu beach scene, where Edward’s rival, Miki Dora, was a cult figure. Although Rusty and Dora differed in their methodology they became tight as they figured out how to make a buck from surfing in 1960s California. While Dora’s nefarious schemes became a thing of legend, Rusty relied on a mix of wave-riding competence, entrepreneurial nous, education, and persistence. Rusty worked hard at his surfing and claimed the USA Title in…

Having grown up in Bondi in the 60s and 70s, my formative years were all about trying to make sense of the chaos of a Sydney beach break. Although Bondi actually gets good banks, especially the coveted rip bowls, it is still a beach break, and subject to the constant changeability that characterises such lineups. Far from being a disadvantage, it is accepted wisdom that learning to surf in a beach break is actually the best grounding a surfer can get. It’s like being thrown in at the deep end, and once you master the difficult to decipher language of this constant flux, most other conditions worldwide become infinitely easier to work out. It’s a bit like learning to drive a manual car; after that, automatics are easy. So, like…

BEHIND THE COVER: LUCY SMALL BY GEORGIA MATTS Wollongong local Georgia Matts is a close friend who I have shot a bit with previously, but we hadn’t really had the chance to work on anything together. When my story was going to be in Tracks and I needed surf shots, the very next thing that happened was that my boss tested positive for COVID and I went into iso. It was a hot minute before Christmas and after a hectic year I was devastated at the prospect of spending my break locked in my bedroom in Newtown. But then I was COVID negative so on a high 30s degree day I zoomed down south to see Georgia and even though it was basically flat, we managed to play around in…

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Despite the best efforts of our AC unit, the seeping heat of Sri Lanka’s east coast provides a clammy alternative to an alarm clock. It’s September 2019, and our motley crew has taken lodgings on the point at Arugam Bay. As the town rumbles to life the sound of honking tuk tuks* shatter the morning calm, and a curious mix of bohemian tourists, loping surfers and stiffly attired Muslim locals weave their way through the dusty streets. Stumbling down to the beach, I glance past the row of colourful fishing boats on shore towards the outside point, where four-foot lines are bending into long, tapered walls that sparkle invitingly in the morning sun. Arugam looks fun but the hoards will soon descend, turning the point into some kind of surfing…

My arse is perched on a patch of basalt on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, at the very place where the Eurasian, African, and North American lithospheric plates meet. I’m in a rock pool, in board shorts, facing the setting sun as it liquifies into the North Atlantic Ocean. In the pool, 75 degrees Celsius geothermal water from a sulphurous spring pours out from under the rocks and mixes with the 21-degree ocean water, providing a perfect hot bath temperature. I raise a cold tin of Sagres beer to my salty lips, smile beatifically and think to myself; you lucky, fucking, bugger. I’m at Ponta da Ferraria, the westernmost point of Sao Miguel, the largest of the nine islands of the Azores. The Azores sit roughly 1,600 clicks west of mainland Portugal,…

When we paddle out, our feet are still slippery with the grit of city streets; the sea’s eternal percussion must compete with the tinny phonics of modernity, and the restorative scent of salt air is infused with all kinds of funky smells. However, once you reach the lineup all that is left behind. Surfing’s capacity to deliver complete immersion in the natural world is perhaps better appreciated by the urban surfer. From out in the water you can look back on all those buildings tumbling towards the sea and know that you are enjoying a vastly different experience to the occupants of the concrete blocks. Meanwhile, a single, good ride can quickly wash away the memories of the toiling we engage in to keep up in an urban world. The…