The family of Fabrizio Stabile, the 29-year-old New Jersey surfer who died after contracting a brain-eating amoeba, is claiming that BSR waterpark officials “tried to cover up evidence of a deadly brain-eating amoeba. . . by “hyper-chlorinating” the surf pool on the eve of a federal health agency investigation,” according to a story in the Waco Tribune-Herald.
Houston attorney Richard Fass, who represents the parents of Fabrizio Stabile, also charged that the water park’s owner, Stuart Parsons Jr., is stonewalling the discovery process in the wrongful death lawsuit by claiming text messages and emails potentially important to the plaintiffs’ case were lost when Parsons dropped his cellphone in Lake Whitney. . . The lawsuit alleges “BSR’s blue-green dyed waves masked a pathogen soup in which Naegleria fowleri amoeba — ‘the brain-eating amoeba’ — could thrive.”
According to the story “Parsons’ attorney, Brittney Angelich, of Dallas, declined comment after a pretrial hearing in the case Thursday. Parsons did not return a phone message Thursday.”
Stabile’s family is seeking more than $1 million from BSR Surf Resort. Sadly, a 10-year-old Waco girl contracted the same brain-eating amoeba on Labor Day weekend this year and is currently in a medically induced coma fighting for her life. It is thought that she got it while swimming in the nearby Brazos River.
The commercial entity that owns half the action sports clothing industry (Boardriders and their brands Quiksilver, Billabong, ROXY, DC Shoes, RVCA, Element “and others”) announced yesterday that they are “launching a multi-year growth agenda and repositioning. . . key executives.”
A quick read-through of the release resulted in exactly one data point that even remotely interested us and it is this: Kevin Meehan is leaving RVCA. Of course, the way they said it is epic: “Kevin Meehan has decided to take the opportunity provided by this transition to pursue new opportunities.” Congrats, Mr. Meehan.
The rest of the news can best be summed up by this quote from the boss.
“The long-term strategy for Boardriders has always been to build a solid foundation by integrating the Billabong acquisition onto a common back-end platform, to continually improve our operations through more disciplined business practices, and to achieve significant synergies that could then be invested back into the brands,” said Boardriders CEO David Tanner. “After a decade of headwinds and restructuring, Boardriders now has that strong foundation and is ready and able to invest strategically at scale in our brands, our people, and these targeted growth initiatives.”
Right. You know all that bad stuff that’s been happening for the LAST 10 YEARS? That’s all behind them now, and everything is looking up, up, up. If that doesn’t make you smile, follow the jump for the rest of the release.
On July 9, 2019, two former C3 Worldwide workers, Cooper and Pius, departed Seattle on a bike packing trip. They’d already quit their jobs, gotten a sponsorship deal from Coal Headwear and hit the road. Their destination? Baja. On the way they planned to surf, clean-up some beaches and document it all along the way. So far, they’ve made it to Newport Beach, California and things appear to be going well. So well, that it seems their surge in popularity has brought their website coastalsifters.com to its knees. But that’s okay; you can follow their latest adventures on Instagram in the meantime right here @coastalsifters.
The family of pro surfer Sunny Garcia has updated the surfer’s gofundme page after nearly four months of silence. Garcia has been in the hospital since April after what many believe was a suicide attempt. Thankfully, the news is good.
A long over due update on Sunny. We are taking one day at a time and celebrating each little triumph. Sunny is a warrior and fighting everyday to get better and stronger. He has said a few words and is now in therapy daily- physical, speech and occupational. The family thanks you for your continued support for Sunny as he continues to heal. It’s going to be a marathon not a sprint but we work every day to make sure he is surrounded with love, laughter and ohana.
If you would like to help the family in this hard time, please click the link and donate to Sunny’s gofundme.
With a result that will likely be repeated in Japan for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games Brazil has won the team title in the 2019 ISA World Surfing Games presented by Vans in Miyazaki, Japan. They did it by landing three medals in the Men’s and Women’s Division.
Brazil’s Italo Ferreira saved his best for last and earned the highest heat total of the event thus far (17.77) with a perfect 10-point ride in the Final.. . . Ferreira’s inspirational finish was a fairy tale ending to a week of adversity. Ferreira nearly missed his first heat of the event after getting his passport stolen only days before leaving for Japan. Ferreira was able to get a passport, fly to Miyazaki, and make it to his first heat of the event with only 8-minutes remaining, where he was still able to take first place.
For the official word from the ISA including the rest of the results, please follow the jump.
Please excuse us while we clear out a bit of news that’s been piling up around the place. Some is new, some is old, and a bit is so old it’s beginning to stink. But we’re not going to let that stop us from posting it as a reminder of some of the news that went down while we were gone for the summer.
The surf industry, through the SIMA Humanitarian Fund is raising money to help the victims of Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas through Waves For Water.
“The Bahamas represents an important region to the surf industry, and the devastation inflicted by Hurricane Dorian is unprecedented,” said Dylan Slater, President of the SIMA Humanitarian Fund. “I believe it’s our duty to come together as an industry and human beings to support the critical work being done by Waves For Water in supporting all those in dire need of clean drinking water.” . . . SIMA members, industry brands, surf industry employees and vendors are encouraged to join together to donate under this appeal via a donation page set up by the SIMA Humanitarian Fund here. In order to expedite funds to Waves For Water, the deadline to donate is 5 pm PDT, Friday, September 13, 2019.
Thanks to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association it has been shown that drinking sodas (like the brands that sponsor skateboarding, snowboarding, and surfing events) is bad for your health and increases your changes of dying sooner rather than later, or as they put it there is an “association between soft drink consumption and mortality.”
In this population-based cohort study of 451, 743 individuals from 10 countries in Europe, greater consumption of total, sugar-sweetened, and artificially sweetened soft drinks was associated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality. Consumption of artificially sweetened soft drinks was positively associated with deaths from circulatory diseases, and sugar-sweetened soft drinks were associated with deaths from digestive diseases.
In other words, rather than trying to encourage people to drink more, we should encourage them to drink less. That’s the main reason why we’re not into seeing action sports brands partnering with caffeinated, carbonated, high fructose corn syrup poison peddlers. Drink water. Duh.
Tradeshows have been closing their doors for all kinds of reasons lately (consolidation, no exhibitors, etc. . . ), but Surf Expo has the best one yet: a massive hurricane named Dorian. Anyone who has weathered a hurricane party at Surf Expo in the past will wonder, “Hey, we’ve survived them before, why not this year?” And really, what’s more fun that getting drunk with all your East Coast industry friends while some poorly named storm blows your trunks off with hot rain blasting in from the Atlantic at 112 MPH? Well, sadly the State Florida no longer has a sense of humor when it comes to storms. What with the whole place predicted to be four feet underwater in 20 years, they’re just not fooling around anymore.
“We understand that Surf Expo plays an important part in connecting buyers and sellers in the Boardsports Beach & Resort industries and that many rely on our marketplace for filling their commerce needs, but travel and logistical difficulties and, more importantly, our customers’ safety is at the forefront of our minds. Given the state of affairs regarding Hurricane Dorian today, we had no choice but to cancel Surf Expo. We recognize that many of our customers will be directly impacted by Hurricane Dorian and feel their focus should be on their families, businesses and community at this time”, said Roy Turner, SVP, Surf Expo Show Director, Emerald Expositions.
So sip your Margaritas somewhere else this September and pray this wasn’t the final nail in the Surf Expo coffin. For more info click the link.
Encinitas, California based Sea of Seven has collaborated with Xanadu Surf Design to create their new Black & White Collection.
“I was very pleased with the work we created during our launch of the Black & White Collection. This time around, I wanted to do something very different. I chose this image as it’s one of the most powerful I’ve ever taken of Xanadu. I am very proud of it. It was my idea to split the image in half, one side showing the positive, the other showing negative and in doing so titling it Think Positive, explained Sea Of Seven founder Jack English.
The shirts are available now on the Sea of Seven website. Click here for more, or for the official word from Sea of Seven, please follow the jump.
The commercial entity that owns half the action sports clothing industry (Boardriders and their brands Quiksilver, Billabong, ROXY, DC Shoes, RVCA, Element “and others”) announced yesterday that they are “launching a multi-year growth agenda and repositioning. . . key executives.”
The surf industry, through the 
Thanks to a new study published in the 
