Table of contents for July 2015 in Zigzag

While this issue was in production, 1977 World Champ Shaun Tomson dropped by the Zigzag offices. Shaun was in town for a gala dinner that was being held by the South African Surfing Legends Foundation to raise funds for a high performance centre. The ultimate goal is to equip the next generation of South African surfers with the skills, mentorship and training it takes to be world champs. It was a no-brainer that Shaun should be keynote speaker for the evening. SA’s legendary World Champ has kept his finger keenly on the pulse of professional surfing and is a firm believer in the power of positive mentorship. With a chunk of this magazine focussed on the challenges our next generation of aspiring pros face, we asked Shaun for his take…

WHAT HAPPENED We had really good waves on this trip to Bali and Lakeys but it was mostly lefts, so I really got the hang of getting tubed on my backhand! Lakey Peak especially - it’s a pretty fun wave when it’s smaller but then it becomes a really heavy wave when it’s over five foot. Once you take off the wave bends in on itself over the bowl and it can get pretty thick and shallow. It was about four to six foot this session and this was a smaller one which no one went on. When I dropped in I realised I was pretty deep but I travelled inside the tube for a while until the foamball got to me and picked me up. But instead of throwing…

Waves For Change ambassador Mikey February has put together a coffee table book showcasing a selection of work from some of South Africa’s finest surf photographers. For the Love features over 120 pages of beautiful lineups, high action images and timeless moments captured along the South African coastline, plus a little insight into the men and women behind the lens. Not only is it a publication every surfer should own, but all proceeds from the sale of the book will go towards the Waves for Change programme which uses surfing as a tool for therapy and upliftment for young adults from Cape Town’s townships. Co-founder Tim Conibear recounts how it all began. When I think of Waves for Change, I think of Sean. I remember first meeting Sean by the…

BUSINESS “THE INDUSTRY HAS BEEN SQUEEZED AND EVER YONE NEEDS TO MAKE SENSE OF THEIR BUDGETS AND RESOURCE ALLOCATION. AT THE END OF THE DAY IT’S ALL ABOUT BUSINESS - MINIMISING COSTS AND IMPRO VING PROFITS.” - Sean Holmes ON 21 APRIL 2015 MIKEY FEBRUARY finished runner-up to Hawaiian Joshua Moniz at the Martinique Surf Pro, a QS 3000. Had MFeb taken out the win in the closefought final, there would have been a few countrymen to shoulder him up the beach. Beyrick de Vries was there, as was Dylan Lightfoot, Dale Staples and Slade Prestwich. The green-and-gold was well represented. Or at least those are the numbers we’ve come to believe as a good showing at an international mid-level QS nowadays. Now let’s rewind the clock back to when…

TAKE TWO Two things regarding the last issue (Volume 39.4): First off, I got to know the late Clive Barber very well during the 1970s and 80s. Clive was a generous, gentle free spirit with a very creative attitude regarding the shape and design of boards. He was more often than not years ahead of his peer shapers in terms of swallow tails, thrusters and experimenting with concave. His commercial problem was that surfers, like most followers of fashion, tended to want to ride whatever Shaun Tomson or the pro of the day was riding, so by the time Clive’s ideas came into fashion he was long busy with a fresh concept. He became extremely bored with the mundane, repetitive production of commercially marketable boards. Clive was unmaterialistic to the…

Yellowfin tuna or Thunnus albacares are pelagic fish predominantly found across the world in tropical and subtropical oceans. Shaped like a silver torpedo dipped in bright yellow, the yellowfin spends most of its life in relatively shallow water, rarely venturing below 100 metres, but these fish are capable of diving to depths of over 1000 metres. While not as big as its more coveted and far more elusive bluefin cousin, yellowfin tuna can grow up to lengths of 2.2 metres and weigh over 180kgs. Fishermen from Cape Point to Cuba love them because, pound for pound, they are one of the strongest and fastest of all big game fish, thanks to a combination of biology and anatomy. Like all tuna species, the yellowfin is capable of controlling its body temperature…

“After a first discovery mission of the Baan in Kolkata last summer, I had a strong desire to come back and check the potential of the Ganga River’s surprisingly big and unknown tidal bore waves,’’ Antony ‘Yep’ Colas tells Zigzag. “I figured the dry monsoon would offer offshore winds and the Baan might just turn on the biggest and best river waves in the world.” Now when Yep Colas is talking about river waves, you’d best listen. The French photographer and surf explorer was the first to surf the Malaysian Benak and Indonesia’s Bono and has chalked multiple sessions at home at the La Gironde in France, plus the Amazon’s Pororoca and Chinese Quangchao. Yep believed the Baan, which is located on the Hooghly River (but known locally as the…

Bash the name Benji Brand into Google and – apart from his flourishing social media accounts and WSL pro surfer profile – you’ll find pages of entries from his tube-riding antics at dream spots around the world. There’s enough YouTube barrel goodness to keep you procrastinating well past your second cup of bad office java. Then of course there is that trip to Angola, where Benji and brother Davey scored a virgin left that’s arguably better than Skeleton Bay and broke the internet in the process. So crafty is the nuggety goofyfooter in the barrel that he won the Monster Energy Pitstop back in February with a mind-blowing Namibian tube and was a close contender in the GoPro of the World contest. But the Kommetjie local is far more that…

Early winter sees the ultimate doublewhammy along the east coast of South Africa. Cold fronts start spinning up from the southern ocean, bringing with them ample swell on a regular basis. But these weather systems don’t travel alone. Cold fronts are often preceded by a warm front before they push up the coast, accompanied by northwest berg winds which blow straight offshore at many of the exposed points and beachies all the way from Hangklip to Haga Haga. This goes some way to explaining those classic offshore days before the southwest buster - and chunky swell - comes barrelling through. It’s a win-win if you play your cards right: surf the exposed reefs and beaches before a front approaches, then head for those protected points that love a huge groundswell…

NAME/ DYLAN HENDRICK S AGE/ 13 HOMETOWN/ JEFFREYS BAY SPONSORS/ BILLABONG, D AKINE, VON ZIPPER, REBEL SURFBO ARDS, JEFFREYS BA Y WIND FARM Who inspires you? Gabriel Medina because of his high airs. Favourite slang? Awe brah! Bacon and eggs or fruit ‘n muesli? Bacon and eggs my bru! Favourite shape? My Rebel 4’8 rounded squash tail. Best tunes to rock out to before a surf? Wolfpack. Sickest thing you’ve done this year? Air reverse. Hidden talent? Skating. Ultimate place to be stranded? Indo. Best thing a girl has ever said to you? Teach me to surf. Biggest mistake you’ve made? I make mistakes all the time... Worst wave you’ve ever surfed? I’ve never surfed a bad wave. Proudest moment? When my sister Zia won the Under 9 division at…

MEXICO 3-7 May 2015 by Twiggy Baker BIG. Paddle out at dark. Beautiful and clean, huge walls of water. Larger and larger sets further out. The rips get scary. Keep pushing, sniffing here and there. Bail twice under sets, just sneaking through, so lucky. Finally, the perfect teepee that you wait your whole life for. Paddle hard, not enough, stuck on the back of the double up. Fuck, pull back, almost sucked over. Turn around, heart stops. Caught inside by the monster. Stay calm, breathe up, boom. Violence. The next one is worse, as is the third. Regurgitated onto the beach. Totally spent without riding a wave. Everything in working order. Ready for tomorrow. After the first day the ocean didn’t stop and for the next three days we where…

While travelling through Costa Rica, I was told again and again: “Go to Playa Negra. It’s one of the best waves in the country.” I heeded the advice and found myself gravitating towards the powerful right hand reef break, renowned for holding the biggest Pacific swells. The day I arrived it was solid. Six to eight-foot with occasional ten foot sets detonating in the murky blue water. My first session was on the high tide with no one else out except my friend Rodolfo. A squall was moving in. It was big and lumpy. Nobody else was interested. After an hour we were done. The squall had worsened and the wind was blowing sideshore, killing the waves. Rodolfo and I went in to get lunch just as the rain started…