Tabla de contenidos para Issue 591 en Tracks

Work: Yes still concreting, mostly six days a week. Since the work boom happened through COVID things have been going bananas! Craft Details: The board I am riding in the shot is a self-shape from a sailboard I found at the tip, trimmed down to a refined, 7-foot slider. It features deep concave twin channels running along the rails and deep, flat rocker (and of course, no fins). Where: A beach break north of people and Perth that is mostly a closeout, but after a wind swells the lines split up and it throws up some shape. Context: I was thinking it was time to go in, I hadn’t had a good one the whole session. After this one, I ended up surfing another two hours. Change of rhythm. Technique:…

Follow the Moon Past the Ruins The aggressive alarm blares. And blares… And blares. Neither of us move. ‘Turn that off!” I look at Al, he’s bleary eyed after driving us through the night. We’ve managed a couple of hours sleep, actually, I snagged a couple more on the way, but I’m still feeling pretty out of it. Coffee. Nothing’s happening without it. After a couple of minutes Al seems to have a bit of a spring in his step, he’s up and looking out of the window. The pre-dawn sky is cloudless with a pinkish hue and from the warmth of the motel room I can almost imagine it being a fall morning in California, but I can see the hard frost on the ground. Al says we’ve not…

“OI, STOP, STOP!,” YELLS DAN. “THERE’S WAVES. DOWN THERE. PULL UP, BRO.” For the past few days that guide has been our manual. We’ve studied it, dog-eared the pages, and tried finding noted spots on the satellite maps in our phone. But along this stretch of the Road, we don’t need the guide. “Reef breaks, everywhere,” says Dan. I slam on the brakes, boat trailer clunking behind, and pull onto the cliff edge where Dan is pointing. Cars zoom past inches from my door. Below the guard rail the cliff drops 100 feet into the Southern Ocean and down there it’s all gunmetal grey, raging white water, rock ledges. Dan hops over the railing to get a better look. The Razors Edge. Like all young men, me and Dan are…

Being at a major contest can trigger conflicting emotions. The speed and preternatural ability of the surfers can really blow your mind when witnessed live. It’s not hard to stay fixated on the action from dawn to dusk when your nostrils are flush with salt air and the sound of a heat siren periodically marks the beginning of another riveting clash between surfing titans. The digital screen never quite does justice to the dynamism of the performances. However, no matter how good the surfing is sometimes another fiendish part of you creeps in and slyly prays for a lay day. You know the conditions, which reduce the contest site to dribble can be ideal for a favoured break down the coast. Slinking away to these spots when the event is…

Over the last couple of years The Van Life movement has spun its way around Australia like a four-wheeled yo-yo craze. However, long before millennial surfers were ditching the inflated rental market and pimping out mobile boxes, surfers were roaming the coast in panel vans. Predating Holden’s fabled Sandman, Ford-Falcon had the SurferRoo, a play on the XW Falcon GT 351 Super Roo. First released in 1969 with a ute tray and massive spoiler, the SurferRoos were emblazoned with a cartoon, surfing kangaroo. Eventually the more intimate panel van model was released. You’ll note the ad’s conspicuous mention of a ‘6-feet foldaway mattress’ and ‘for complete privacy full wrap around curtains.’ With boards stacked high on the roof, and a full tank of gas the SurferRoo no doubt made all…

THE WILD MEN OF THE JUNGLE DANCE IN CONCERT WITH IT ALL. PHANTOMS OF SKIN AND GRISTLE AND SWEAT, STOMPING AND SPINNING, THEY TRANCE AND EXPEL A DEEP BREATHY CHANT. THEY ARE FESTOONED WITH BRIGHT FEATHERS AND BAMBOO SHOOTS AND SLIVERS OF JUNGLE LEAVES, THE TINY EMBERS FROM THEIR CEREMONIAL TOBACCO SMOLDERING IN THEIR UNTAMED HAIR. They are surrounded by a circle of sunburned and grinning Kandui Resort surfing guests. The dance is a treat for the guests on their last night at the resort, but the wild men of the jungle are very real and their performance is very real and there is some confusion about this. Tourists are more used to the insincere. These surf guests who have been staying and surfing at the Kandui resort have had…

VIEWED THROUGH THE PRISM OF A WSL WEBCAST, THE MODERN SURF CONTEST CAN SEEM LIKE A SLIGHTLY CONSERVATIVE ENDEAVOUR. A MOVEABLE FEAST OF SCAFFOLDING, WEBCAMS, COMPETITOR’S AREAS AND COMMENTARY BOOTHS THAT, DESPITE THE FREQUENTLY SHIFTING LOCATIONS, HAS A KIND OF STATELY SAMENESS ABOUT IT. As viewers, it almost feels like we are being invited to join the WSL country club. While the model may appease risk-averse sponsors and ensure the surfing masses are treated to high-production values it seems a far cry from the festival atmosphere that permeated events of yesteryear. However, what the webcast doesn’t reveal is how much happens around the fringes of a surf contest; particularly at a location like Bells where one can easily get swept up in the convivial vortex of nightly happenings, which are…

THIS AREA, ALTHOUGH A LOT MORE CROWDED THAN IT USED TO BE, STILL RETAINS A TOUCH OF THE UNDERGROUND VIBE, IN SO MUCH AS IT’S NOT REALLY FAMOUS LIKE KIRRA, NOOSA OR LENNOX AND THE LIKE. It lacks any meaningful reef breaks, and so is subject to the whims of sand movement, and therein lies the rub: for some mysterious reason, it just doesn’t get the sand banks it used to get. I grew up in Bondi, but from the first week of getting my driver’s licence in 1979, this zone a few hours north was on my radar, and was the target of the majority of my surf trips. For decades, it never failed to provide some sort of surf, regardless of conditions. I eventually moved to the area…

01. LIGHTBOX SURFER: CAITY SIMMERS PHOTO: RYAN MILLER When Caitlin Simmers qualified for the CT in 2022, the prodigious teen elected not to take up the position. “I’d like to work on my surfing, spending time with my family, friends, and school to be more mentally and physically ready to face that challenge,” the whippet framed surfer from Oceanside California told the WSL. Simmers, comfortably re-qualified in 2023 and by the time she landed in Margaret River this year, she’d already won her first CT in sand-churning chunks at Supertubos and tail-kicked her way into the all-important top five. When a free-surfing session went down at The Box, in Margaret River, Simmers was quick to join the barrel-hunt alongside good friend, Sierra Kerr. Any surfer who’s taken on The Box…

IT COULD’VE BEEN ANY OLD BEACH IN ANY OLD TOWN. THREE CHILDHOOD FRIENDS STANDING SIDE BY SIDE ON THE SAND, GRIPPED WITH FEAR AND EXCITEMENT IN THE PRE-DAWN LIGHT, HANDS TIGHTLY WRAPPED AROUND THE RAIL OF THEIR BOARDS. In this instance, we find a young Mark Healey, Danny Fuller, and Jamie O’Brien poised at a most pivotal point of their young surfing journey on the shore at the good old Banzai Pipeline. It was to be the first time the trio would ever paddle out at the famed break and the nerves were kicking in good and proper. To ensure they’d be first out, the three had camped on the beach overnight. Near on 30 years since that morning, that memory in particular prompts a chuckle for the now 41-year-old…

SPEAKING FROM HIS COSY HOME IN A JAN JUC CUL-DE-SAC, JUST DOWN THE ROAD FROM BELLS, STEPHEN RYAN RECALLS BEING A SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD APPRENTICE PRINTER, WORKING IN THE GRITTY INNER-CITY FRINGES OF MELBOURNE, IN THE EARLY 70S. Speaking from his cosy home in a Jan Juc culderasc, just down the road from Bells, Stephen Ryan recalls being a seventeen year-old apprentice printer, working in the gritty inner-city fringes of Melbourne, in the early 70s. His fingers were permanently ink-stained and typically the only lines stacked in front of him were on something mind-numbing like a bundle of blank withdrawal forms. “I used to get a sore cheekbone from leaning on the machine watching the sheets and double-checking,” explains Steve. “It was really boring sort of stuff… I was just day dreaming…