Tabla de contenidos para No. 567 en Tracks

Paddle out at just about any present-day lineup and diversity will be a common theme. You’ll find finless devotees doing spinners on softies, girls ripping, teenagers on twinnies, salty locals bending through ancient cutbacks and inevitably those steely-eyed groms who have their sights set on pro-surfing glory. Surfing has so many sub-tribes you need a degree in anthropology to keep up. My personal favourites are the husband/ wife teams who operate a well-defined equal rights system – one nursing the baby on the beach while the other enjoys their allotted time in the water before making the swap. There’s a determined, mal-riding mother at my local who can catch more waves in thirty minutes than any surfer I’ve ever seen, including Sebastian Zietz after his fourth coffee. While coastlines may…

1 – Optimal conditions The best time for surfing in the Maldives is the Southern Hemisphere winter, which lasts from March to October. During this period the roaring forties cause storms which bring large swells to the archipelago. Peak season is usually June, July & August but it isn’t uncommon to experience decent sized swells in the early and late season. Winds remain offshore during this winter period and it is very rare to experience an on-shore day during this time. During the NE monsoon (Feb – Apr) the conditions are optimal for the Outer Atolls, with Indo-like reef breaks in very uncrowded areas of the island nation. From May to Oct, during the SW monsoon, this area remains a viable option, but attention generally swings to the more Northern…

I was loitering like a bored grommet at Sunburnt Mess surf shop in Bondi recently when shop owner, Pat Cahill, suggested I test-ride a Vouch, keel fin VISH model. Fifteen minutes later I was screaming down the line on the 5’3” VISH, blissfully reminded of the direct correlation between going fast and having fun on a surfboard. Inspired by the experience, I got in contact with Evan Squirrell from Vouch to try and unravel some of the magic behind the VISH model. Below, Evan explains his unique working relationship with collaborator and revered surfer/shaper, Paul Hutchinson, and discusses the factors which make the VISH ride like a mini torpedo you can do turns on. Does your VISH model take direct inspiration from any one shaper in the past? Of course…

"MY FOREHEAD IS SUNBURNT, MY EYES HAVE PTERYGIUMS, MY NECK HAS A RASH, I'VE GOT STAPH AND ONE OF MY SHOULDERS JUST WENT AGAIN. SOUND SHITHOUSE? SURFING IS SHITHOUSE. HERE I AM SITTING IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE WAITING FOR A VALIUM TO KICK IN, SO I CAN RELAX BEFORE POPPING MY SHOULDER BACK WHERE IT USUALLY SITS, CHASING A DREAM, WONDERING WHY I DO IT. JUST KIDDING, THE THOUGHT HAS NEVER CROSSED MY MIND, MY SHOULDER SITS IN PLACE AND I HAVEN'T JUST EATEN A VALIUM. THAT WAS A FEW YEARS AGO, AND THOUGH I WAS RATTLED, I WASN'T QUESTIONING WHAT I DO OR WHY I DO IT. SO I'VE BEEN ASKED WHY DO I SURF? IT'S THE ONE QUESTION I CAN'T ANSWER. THE ONE QUESTION I HAVE NEVER…

Albe Falzon, director of Morning of the Earth, said it best. While seated at the dining table of his Eungai Creek home, with the Bodhi tree* in the middle and the disciples of his vision around it, he could see it clear as day. “This is the surfboard idea and it’s just flowered,” he told them. “The flower is fully out and it’s bloomed. It’s amazing you did that,” he said. The fruits of his mandala, seated at the table with him, were Simon Jones, the humble surfer, shaper, family and community man from the NSW Northern Rivers. Torren Martyn, the style master, twin-fin experimentalist, son-of-a-single mother, and fellow Northern Rivers product. Ishka Folkwell, the world class cinematographer and filmmaker. And Simon’s son, Dash. Around a decade earlier Albe had…

With Kelly Slater and the World Surf League’s Surf Ranch in Lemoore, California, about to host the first serious, title-on-the-line wave pool event since 1985, it’s incredible to think that America’s first – and still operating – wave park, Big Surf in Tempe, Arizona, will turn 50 in a few months. Yes, readers, as impossible as it may seem, there is a functioning wave pool that is older than Kelly, or Tracks, for that matter. But wait, here’s something even more incredible. While Hitler’s goose-stepping zombies were just beginning their march across Europe, spreading havoc and hatred wherever they trod, the famous British architect and engineer Sir Owen Williams was finalising the design of the world’s first wave pool, better known as the Wembley Empire Pool when it became the…

//RAMON_NAVARRO_SERVAIS_009311.TIF This was a wave six years in the making. In 2012 the now legendary Thundercloud session at Cloudbreak took big wave tube riding into a totally new realm. Two of the standouts on that day were Chilean, Ramon Navarro and Hawaiian Kohl Christensen. The image of Ramon in his white wetsuit top, bouncing over the foam ball inside those big blue caves is forever seared into my brain. The other moment from that day etched in the memory of surfers the planet over is the vision of Mark Healey’s board floating helplessly in the lip of ‘that one’ - the rogue set wave that changed the way we looked at Cloudbreak forever. So, six long years later, when a Cloudbreak swell of the same magnitude showed on the charts,…

While Julian Wilson is well in contention for his first world title, there have been recent rumblings about Australia losing its grip on the upper echelons of professional surfing. In such uncertain times it’s reassuring to know there are young surfers in Oz who look set to tear their way into the ranks of the WCT in a few years time. 12-year-old Ty Richardson, who lives at Palm Beach and surfs for Snapper Rocks, has a long way to go and we don’t want to place any unnecessary pressure on the kid, but he certainly appears to have the makings of a champion, professional surfer. Ty’s uncle, Joel Parkinson, is the perfect mentor for the young, Gold Coast ripper. “Ty is a great kid with a huge amount of talent!…

Julian Wilson has been close to a world title on a number of occasions. I’m not talking about his third place finish last year or his sixths in 2015 and 2013, no, I’m referencing the fact that he has often been physically close to the moment when another surfer is drowned in glory and the unique sense of self-validation that a world title delivers. In 2013 Mick Fanning defeated Yadin Nicol in quarter final one of the Pipe Masters to claim his third world crown. While Mick was celebrating on the beach, Julian was taking notes from John John in the next quarter-final. The following year at Pipeline, Julian had to surf his round five heat against Sebastian Zeitz amidst the ostentatious celebrations of Gabriel Medina’s world title victory. When…

He stands tall upon the earth, lean and mulleted, like a Viking preparing to do battle and drink Christian blood. Surfs like a wild man– all power and projection and brute force. He reminds Australian surfers of our heritage – all those madly competitive alphas who ushered in the shortboard and DIYed the world tour. They didn’t flow with the wave; they attacked it like wild animals and embraced what Derek Hynd called a “bastard desire” to win. And win they did. Repeatedly. Australia became the most dominant force in competitive surfing and stayed that way for some forty years. Recently that remarkable legacy has faltered and questions are being asked. About title prospects. About national pride. About the size and duration of the Brazilian storm. When will we feel…

From The Vault. Mountains and Molehills While the mountains may be soaring gloriously in the background they seem to further emphasize the diminutive nature of the waves dribbling through, at this early incarnation of the wave pool. The setting is Palm Springs circa 1980-1990 and while the technology may fall short of the hypnotic, folding ribbons found in modern wave pools you have to admit that the deck-chair viewing platform at the edge of this aquatic experiment is pretty cool. Follow. Pro surfing’s prolific lensman @boskophoto Listen –Christian Syrups by Crocodylus. Featuring guitar riffs with the kind of grind that make you want to whack the lip and vocals tones with an other-worldy quality. A bonafide live act, the boys from Crocodylus are obviosly having fun whilst producing a sound…

“Sth Narrawallee, first surf after accident, around head high on Vanessa’s board. Stayed out 30 mins, got about 6 to 8 waves, had a really good surf considering 5 weeks off.” Dated 15/2/1992, Mollymook’s Mark Roughly had just put pen to paper on his maiden journal entry. Coincidentally, it was an unexpected fin to the family jewels that would influence a record-breaking number of diary entries, spanning 28 years and filling the pages of 64 books. The idea had sprung to mind through Dale Webster, a Northern Californian surfer who infamously surfed every day for 40 years. 16 stitches and five weeks of bed rest later, Ruffo decided he was going to start his own tradition by recording every one of his surfs from that point onward, no matter the…

Harrison Roach is eyeing off the overcrowded bookshelves that line one side of my cramped home office. He pulls down a signed copy of William Finnegan’s Barbarian Days, leafs through a few pages and puts it back. “Got about halfway through it but couldn’t finish it,” he says. He finds a more modest tome, the author’s Life Of Brine, and does the same thing. “Barely got started on this one,” he says cheekily. Okay, smartarse, what was the last book you did finish? “War and Peace. Loved it, couldn’t put it down.” The lesson is, with Harrison Roach, expect the unexpected. I have yet to see (another) surfer do what he did, to be honest with you…To go from a noserider, to a performance shortboard, to a twin-fin, to a…

“You have to evolve, but I’ve always been true to myself and done what I want to do,” Ross Clarke-Jones tells Tracks. “My sponsors once asked me, ‘What do you want to do in five years?’ I answered, “Fucked if I know, in five years I could be dead.’ And that was when I was 30.” Ross Clarke Jones is now 51 and very much alive. With dark bones, black eyes, speed in his veins and a laugh that can power a thermonuclear reactor, the man born on 6.6.66 is the last man standing. This European winter he was yet again nominated for the XXL Biggest Wave Award for a behemoth ridden at Nazaré. It seems a move to Portugal has yet again kick-started a career that is 35-years strong…