We say this every year, but it’s hard to believe the ASP winter break is over and we’re already staring down the barrel of the 2012 ASP World Title Season with the Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast waiting period beginning Saturday, February 25, 2012 and the 2012 ASP awards banquet last night.
The ASP would like everything to know that Joel Parkinson and Jordy Smith are ready to chase down the title, so, for that matter is Kelly Slater.
“I had some really good waves at home and I’ve been going to J-Bay a lot to work on my boards for Snapper,” Jordy Smith said. “If a board doesn’t go good there it’s not going to work anywhere. It’s such a good wave that you can stand up and feel every little bump in your boards. I’ve been testing fins as well, seeing which fins work with what boards. I think in my first couple of years I lost some heats because I wasn’t that dialed in with my equipment, so I’m just working on eliminating that. I’ve also been staying fit with some training.”
Follow the jump for the official word from the ASP including a complete list of award winners from last night banquet. [click to continue…]
Over the years Newport Beach, California has become a breeding ground for jacked up rolling toys of all kinds. Time to add the Surf Skate to the list. It’s a skateboard with a 360 degree rotational front truck set up that reportedly allows skateboarders to ride just like surfers. Okay. . .
Shawn Stussy is someone we often wonder about. There is much about the action fashion business word that Shawn hasn’t experienced two or three times. Having sold off his last name years ago, he continues to dabble in the things that made him famous, but at a much slower, lower pace. Seth Epstein rolled by Shawn’s S/DOUBLE Studio with a Canon 5D Mark 2 and rolled some video for a while. This is the result.
After watching this edit It’s rather difficult to argue with the entire premise of Billabong’s latest marketing message. Life in boardshorts looks pretty, pretty, good.
Nike Surfing team cameras follow Filipe Toledo, Scooby, and Gabriel Medina as they surf up Oahu’s North Shore over the winter. Yep, the kids are still good.
Bruce Irons did a test run at Teahupoo wearing a blindfold. Why? We’re not sure. Now, for his next trick we’d like to see him do it blindfolded with one arm tied behind his back.
The Sydney Morning Herald is quoting “sources close” to Billabong as saying that CEO Derek O’Neill will be “removed as CEO” soon thanks to “declining sales and rising debt,” but officially the company is denying that.
Billabong last night moved to quash rumors that embattled chief executive Derek O’Neill would soon be dumped by the board, amid growing concern among major investors about the surf wear company’s performance. . . Billabong chairman Ted Kunkel said last night: ”I categorically deny the suggestion.”
We’re going out on a limb to say that we think the board will do whatever they think is best for the stock.
It was down to the wire at the 2012 Volcom Pipeline Pro with Pipeline veteran Jamie O’Brien in the lead for most of the final over Kai Barger, Nate Yeomans, and John Florence. With O’Brien in the lead, Florence had already conceded defeat, when a wave bumped up on the horizon. Florence paddled for it, slipped in, got shacked and added a 9.33 to his 10 for a winning 19.93.
“I wrote myself off half way through,” said Florence. “Kai and Jamie both had nines and eights. Jamie had two nines. I can’t believe it. Here at Pipe anything can happen. I surfed my first heat, then had my hand (injury) and tweaked my neck really bad and that was killing me. So I was seriously considering not continuing on. I got some work done on my neck, taped my hand up and it all worked out.”
JOB was equally bummed after coming so close.
“It hurts,” said Jamie, holding onto the runner-up $10,000 check. “You think you’re going to get first and you don’t. It’s OK. I got some really good scores and I put on a great performance, I felt. To me that means everything. I had a great time. I finally got in a good rhythm my last couple of heats. I enjoyed myself and it was a good day.”
Organizers of the Volcom Pipeline Pro didn’t let 12 foot waves get in the way of competition on Day 3 of the event on January 31, 2012.
Defending Volcom Pipe Pro champion, John Florence (Hawaii), scraped through today in a heat that could have been a final. Up against former Pipe champion Bruce Irons, Australian Anthony Walsh, and North Shore local Sean Moody, Florence had his work cut out. Florence made a last minute barrel to steal second place away from Walsh and advance. . . “I was pretty nervous, I almost wasn’t going to do my heat,” said Florence. “I have a really bad kink in my neck, and my hand hurt… I kind of sat there the whole heat and luckily got a wave in the end. Anthony Walsh is so gnarly. That was definitely a scary heat to have… Moody and Bruce too… There are a lot of wash-through sets. It’s fun but there’s these crazy double ups that come in.”
Round of 32 heats could begin today. Follow the jump for full details. [click to continue…]
Mervin Manufacturing co-founder Mike Olson has been weird sciencing the snowboard world for nearly three decades. Some would argue (us included) that Olson (along with partner Peter Saari and Steven Cobb) responsible for more design advancements in snowboard and ski technology than any other living person. Beginning with the carving snowboard, parabolic sidecut, and cap construction, and continuing on with reverse camber, and augmented snowboard edge shapes, Olson has been going against conventional wisdom for his entire career. For the past two years Olson has been working exclusively on a new project involving what he calls “waterboards” or what the rest of us call surfboards.
Jeff Henderson, Mike Olson, Pete Saari and the new Lib Tech waterboards.
We’ve been hearing about these new surfboards for a while but we’d never seen any, most likely because he’s purposefully been keeping them out of the line-ups of Southern California breaks. Then during the Agenda Show in Long Beach we got into a late-night elevator at the Hyatt and ran into a crew from Mervin Manufacturing. They had four of the new surfboards and were taking them up to their room. We were so blown away by the boards and so interested in feeling, squeezing, and holding them that we forgot to even take a picture. We didn’t know it at the time, but in typical Mervin Manufacturing strategy Mike decided to present the surfboards to the world at the Snowsports Industries of America Show in Denver, Colorado last week where very few of the attendees would even know enough about surfing to be impressed.
We couldn’t believe what we were seeing, it’s game-changing. As much as we can say from only holding them, the boards live up to the hype. They are light, well-shaped, and (after seeing four knocked to the floor) unbelievable durable. We had some questions, and luckily Mike Olson was there to answer them in excruciating detail.
Halfway through our interview PR maven Lora Bodmer cut in to make sure Olson wasn’t giving away any trade secrets, but other than that we got 28 minutes of the straight scoop.
