Содержание выпуска: January 2017 — Surfer

Of all the surfy disciplines one can pursue, slab surfing may allow the smallest margin for error. A mistimed paddle, an offset bottom turn, or a slow reaction to a step in the face could lead to a very unfortunate meeting between your head and the reef. But since slab surfing really took off in the early 2000s, its advancement has always relied on leaps of blind faith, where error is abundant. “You’re pretty much just sending it,” says Torrey Meister, pictured navigating a near-dry section at The Cave. “Waves that look good can be bad. Waves that look bad can be good. My advice? Make the drop and race as fast as you can.”…

“What’s interesting about everybody surfing the same way, wearing the same thing, singing the same song?” It’s important to stay true to yourself. My favorite surfer was Martin Potter. I liked how fast he went and how he used speed, but I never tried to copy his style. I always just did my own thing. You’re going to have your favorite surfers and you’ll like their style, but you have to stay true to yourself. You’re always learning as a parent. More than anything, fatherhood has taught me patience. My son is 25 now and I remember getting frustrated teaching him how to surf. You have to take a step back sometimes to be aware of yourself. Surfing isn’t easy, but you don’t always remember that if you’ve done it…

Grant “Twiggy” Baker regularly travels to the farthest reaches of the South African coastline to score empty waves, but with the stillness and silence of the country’s outermost regions comes the fear of a very intimidating group of locals lurking below the surface. “There’s probably more sharks around that island in the distance than anywhere else in South Africa,” Baker says. “You don’t see many surfers here for that reason. The water is so dark brown, it’s almost black. It’s one of the scariest places I’ve ever surfed, yet one of the most beautiful.”…

If you had asked me 10 years ago if my quiver would ever contain a longboard, I would have laughed in your face, pointed to my stack of nearly identical 5'10" thrusters, and said that real surfers ride shortboards, period. After all, my singular goal in surfing at the time was to stand up on a wave and belt the lip as hard as I could, as many times as I could, until all that was left was a mound of poor, helpless whitewater—which I would attempt to continue belting anyway. I thought I was making music, but in hindsight my surfing was much like a skipping record, obnoxiously playing the same part over and over again. It makes sense that my surfing was stuck in a closed loop for…

The first words of this six-page Age of Aquarius backyard-board-design dialectic go like this: “Hello. I am a spaceman. I am the spirits of Einstein, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and Bob Simmons, taken possession, temporarily, of the innocent body known here on earth [sic] as Tom Morey. I (we, really) am looking at your surfboards of today and thinking they are junk.” Most of what there is to know about Morey— surfer, inventor, theorist, fabulist; creator of the bodyboard and spray-on traction and maybe even professional surfing—is contained within those few lines. He is freethinking. He is funny. Impressive. Self-important. He wants to improve things—is hellbent on doing so. And in the process, he will grin and raise an eyebrow and talk some good-natured shit. “Space Boards” finds Morey…

On an early Thursday morning in late July, the streets of Huntington Beach, California, were quiet and gray, street sweepers buzzing about as a few vagrants slept on the sidewalks under week-old copies of The New York Times. But just a stone’s throw away in the shadow of the pier, a surprisingly large weekday-morning crowd was gathered on the sand. Out in the water, the first heats of the Vans Duct Tape Invitational—Joel Tudor’s traveling circus that doubles as a rebel longboard tour—were underway. The gutless south swell made for slow going for even the most flyweight ’QS grinders during the shortboard divisions of the U.S. Open of Surfing, which had been running at the pier all week. But for this particular group of longboarders—inarguably some of the world’s best—it…

I recently sold the very last “regular shortboard” in my garage. I parted with the beautiful custom-made 6'3" squashtail for a song, glad to trade it for the increased storage space. Hadn’t picked up the board for over a year anyway. I’ve still got a roundpin step-up in the mix in order to kid myself that I’m charging far harder than I actually am, but my quiver transformation is now basically complete. It’s morphed from 90 percent thrusters with a fish and a longboard for the down days to nothing but fish, mid-lengths, a log, a handplane, a couple soft-tops, and a gun. It was a strange feeling after I handed the board over, waved goodbye to its new owner, then turned to face my surfboard collection, defanged to…

On a beautiful late-summer day in September 2015, Shawn Dollar was riding a wave at a remote break on the California coast when he fell and hit his head on a rock beneath the water. The impact broke his neck in four places and caused a massive concussion. Dollar once held the world record for the largest wave ever paddled into, and he’s been in plenty of terrifying situations in the ocean, but he had never experienced anything quite like this. Despite blinding pain, not being able to move his head, and total disorientation, Dollar was forced to summon whatever strength he could to get back to shore without drowning in a maelstrom of rocks and whitewater along the wave-beaten cliffs. Once on land, he navigated a tortuous hike to…

52% of respondents thought that Italo Ferreira was a new Italian sports car. 55% of surfers admitted to regularly peeing in their wetsuits. When participants were reminded that this was an anonymous survey, the figure rose to 100%. 34% of surfers under the age of 20 believe Occhilupo is a Caribbean island featured on “Naked and Afraid” and that a Tom Carroll is the name of a cocktail poured in “Mad Men.” 67% of surfers have found their biggest barrels while tucked under the shower of a lawn sprinkler. The number of professional surfers who have attempted to order a pizza from their phone while inside a Teahupoo barrel remains at 1. 13% of high schoolers in San Clemente, California, have been suspended at least once for overt references to…