by The Editors on August 29, 2008
In 2010 Rip Curl would like to hold a WCT surf event in Lennox Head, Australia where “the consistent right-hand point break is world renowned for quality, big wave,” according to a story on goldcoast.com.au.
Local surfer Ed Standfield established the North East Surfers Alliance early this year in a bid to ban corporate surfing events being hosted at Lennox Head. “We are being made out as grumpy old men who want the beach for ourselves but that isn’t the case,” he said. . . . “We have had over 700 signatures from local businesses and residents who do not want surf company Rip Curl to hold an international surfing event here in 2010. . . “Where they want to have the surf competition, at the point, is a nature reserve,” said Mr Standfield.
Looks like the local townsfolk don’t really care about a $2 million surf contest in their backyard. We can’t say we blame them.
[Link: Goldcoast.com.au]
by The Editors on August 29, 2008
Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s 12-year-old son Brandon Thomas (who seems like a really cool kid) got a little surf lesson at Bondi Beach yesterday while his mom is in Australia doing promo for her new show Pam: Girl On The Loose.
Must be nice to go surfing while your mom is out selling her wares.
[Link: Celebrity Baby Blog]
by The Editors on August 28, 2008
This is getting really old, it’s starting to feel like logging pitbull bites in the Barrio. But Alexander Zgura, 26, of New Smyrna Beach, Florida was bitten (twice) by a shark as he sat “dangling his toes in the murky ocean.”
Zgura reportedly suffered two bites, with numerous lacerations, between his knee and ankle, but declined being transported to the nearest medical center, saying he would go by private vehicle.
[Link All Headline News]
by The Editors on August 28, 2008
As if the Stop The Toll Road campaign could get any weirder, now the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council is charging that the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association is spreading untruths about the project and that “the lies being perpetrated by the opponents to this project are costing the region hundreds of jobs at a time when the economy is already in peril.”
R 241 opponents, specifically the Surfrider Foundation and the Sierra Club’s Friends of the Foothills, are using SIMA resources to repeatedly assert false claims that the toll road will cause the closure of the San Mateo campground and damage the surf break at Trestles,” said Trades Council Executive Secretary Richard Slawson. “Their assertions are nonsense. Even a noted researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography has studied the project and determined that it will have no impact on surfing or wave formation. . . . According to the LA/OC CBCTC, rather than helping the environment and protecting surfing locations, they are engaged in a smear campaign that manipulates and distorts the facts in an effort to stop a project that has been studied for more than 20 years, will bring much needed traffic relief to the region and provide hundreds of jobs for the local workforce.
The group is threatening a boycott of products by SIMA members Billabong, Hurley, Nixon, O’Neill, Quiksilver, Vans, and Volcom saying:
We value integrity in public debate and recognize differences of opinion. However, our members will not continue to support companies who knowingly sponsor groups who seek to lie or misinform the public.
We hate new roads no matter where they are going or what impact they have, but it is interesting to see how the other side is spinning it. For the entire letter follow the jump.
[Link: MarketWatch]
[click to continue…]
by The Editors on August 27, 2008
The teen retail marketplace has been plummeting lately, and when PacSun announced their numbers last week Volcom got pulled down pretty hard. Now, Jeffrey P. Klinefelter of Piper Jaffray has written saying that Volcom management “remains confident that it’s bookings at major retailers are intact.”
We continue to recognize the strong authenticity of the brand as well as its solid execution in rolling out its new European strategy,” Klinefelter wrote.
Maybe that’s why the stock is up today.
[Link: Forbes.com]
by The Editors on August 25, 2008
Another New Smyrna Beach surfer has been nipped by a shark.
The 20-year-old surfer was towing his surfboard about 3 p.m. when the shark bit his left foot, Petersohn said. . . . He suffered four lacerations to his foot and instep and was treated on the scene just south of the 27th Street beach approach. Friends later took him to Bert Fish Medical Center in New Smyrna Beach, Petersohn said.
Sounds like toes in the nose. (Sadly, we’re running out of sharky, small wave jokes.)
[Link: News Journal Online]
by The Editors on August 25, 2008
Lifeguards at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area have closed Northern California’s Stinson Beach to swimmer and surfers “after a great white shark was spotted on Sunday night, according to park officials.”
The shark, which was eight to 10 feet long, was seen about 7 p.m. about 125 yards from shore. . . .“It was by a former lifeguard and fisherman, he knows what he saw, that is why we are confident it was a great white shark,” said John Ralph, the lifeguard supervisor at Stinson, which is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
Don’t know if it’s ever that great an idea to surf at Stinson Beach.
[Link: Press Democrat]
by The Editors on August 25, 2008
South Carolina surfer Craig Massey, 20, (pictured above) was stabbed to death on July 2, 2008 in the home of Charles Richard Dobson, Jr.,19. Dobson who is charged with murder and two counts of assault and battery with intent to kill claims he acted in self defense.
“These people broke into my house and assaulted me,” Dobson told Charleston County Magistrate Mary Holmes at his bond hearing Thursday night. . . His attorney, Margie Pizarro, later said that Dobson was at home with his younger brother and another person when several people entered the home. She said they were not guests and were not invited into the residence.
Many people can’t figure out how it could have happened:
“Everyone was completely shocked by what happened,” Nancy Hussey, director of the Eastern Surfing Association, said. “Craig was so friendly and well-mannered. He was a very sweet guy.”
The only connection appears to be a 19-year-old girl named Mary Whilden Hills who both Massey and Dobson reportedly dated. (Hills was wounded in the incident”)
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for September 2, 2008.
[Links: Charleston.net via Thedigitel]
by The Editors on August 22, 2008
The LA Times has finally dropped in on the story that has had surfers around the world getting more and more pissed off each day: the outrageous fees airlines are charging to fly with a surfboard.
Surfers note that most airlines don’t charge for golf bags, while surfers are paying as much as $300 a board for international flights. That’s nearly as much as a new board can cost. Avid surfers take as many as four boards in a bag, which can mean a $1,200 bill, or $2,400 for a round trip. . . . The charges have gotten so gnarly that some professional surfers are calling for a boycott of airlines that have high fees and are putting out their own personal lists of surfer-friendly carriers that wave riders should patronize. One of the hottest surfing websites is now also a guide to airline fees.
We agree and have decided that from now on when we travel to Hawaii we’re going to just buy boards off the rack when we get there and sell the off when we leave. Sadly, that doesn’t work in many places with great waves.
[Link: LA Times]
by The Editors on August 22, 2008
Jamie Meiselman, the founder and CEO of Surfparks, LLC has been planning to build the world’s best artificial wave park for nearly a decade. But now his best hope for realizing that dream, the Ron Jon Surfpark at the Festival Bay Mall in Orlando, Florida, has run up on a dry reef according to a story in the Orlando Sentinel.
Thanks to repeated delays (the project was announced four years ago) “the Cocoa-based Ron Jon Surf Shop has pulled its name from the project.”
“We had some flaws in the technology and invested quite a bit of money in fixing that,” said Jamie Meiselman, founder and chief executive officer of the company behind the project, which calls itself Surfparks LLC. “The good news is we were able to solve the problems; the bad news is it came at a cost.”
According to the story, the $9 million that Surfparks, LLC raised to build the project has already spent on “unexpected research and development.” Wow. That’s a lot of research.
[Link: Orlando Sentinel]
In 2010 Rip Curl would like to hold a WCT surf event in Lennox Head, Australia where “the consistent right-hand point break is world renowned for quality, big wave,” according to a story on goldcoast.com.au.
