by The Editors on May 21, 2008
Kelly Slater will be featured in a new 3D IMAX film from The Stephen Low Corporation and Quiksilver. Titled, The Ultimate Wave” features a tried and true format for certain:
Ultimate Wave is directed by award-winning giant-screen filmmaker Stephen Low and features eight-time world champion Kelly Slater at the helm of a surf expedition, exploring the globe to find and ride the ultimate wave. An accomplished athlete, surf explorer and devout student of the natural world Slater’s fascination and engagement with the ocean will provide audiences with a remarkable portal into the world of the wave.
Looks like this may make hunting down an IMAX theater worthwhile. The film is set to launch in the fall of 2009.
by The Editors on May 16, 2008
Da Hui in the Fashion & Style section of the New York Times. Read the story of Fast Eddy and da boys, one more time. This time from a fashion industry angle.
With annual sales of roughly $2 million, the privately held Da Hui is a flyspeck in comparison with mass-market behemoths like Billabong or Quiksilver. But the appeal of the label — now sold at surf shops in 19 states and 12 countries — is that its black boardshorts and no-frills logos both bypass the sport’s floral sartorial clichés and also, for those in the know, summon up a hard-core, roots surfer image of riders like those Da Hui underwrites.
For the rest of the story, click the link.
[Link: New York Times]
by The Editors on May 8, 2008
The Seshn.com site has been up for awhile, but the press release has just now gone out. And guess who is involved? Former Joyride Snowboards founder Ken Greengard. How is this new action sports portal different from other sites like 5ones.com? Seshn founder Brandon Winnie explains.
Seshn aims to provide people with a unique site that isn’t your typical trendy action sports site attempting to create another YouTube or Myspace for action sports. “The people involved in this lifestyle are leaders and trendsetters, so we feel that we have created a site that meets that label. We have developed a unique concept and strategy that let’s people be the individualists and trendsetters that they are,” Brandon goes on to say. “I started this thing because I saw an opening that wasn’t being filled. I saw so many people trying to copy Myspace, Facebook and YouTube. Those sites will always be around, so why try to compete with them? My idea was let’s create an information network and let’s work with them.”
The WordPress-powered site looks nice (but then don’t they all). It will be interesting to see how the content grows as the site develops in what is becoming a horrendously crowded market place.
[click to continue…]
by The Editors on May 7, 2008
According to c|net the hottest new action sports trend in Silicon Valley is kitesurfing (which is really no surprise).
For the uneducated (that’s the rest of us), kiteboarding (or kite surfing) is the trendiest adrenaline-junkie sport among Valley venture capitalists and high-tech entrepreneurs. In fact, mention you’re an amateur at a technology social function, and it could provide an entree to a conversation with the kite-savvy Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Second Life‘s Philip Rosedale, or venture capitalists Bill Tai and Ken Howery.
“I always joke that to kite-surf, you either need to be a venture capitalist or unemployed,” said Chris Sacca, a former Google executive who’s now a technology investor, referring to the flexible schedule that people need to surf between 2:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., which are peak wind times. The cars at the kite beach parking lot on 3rd Avenue near San Mateo, Calif., (a spot about 20 miles south of San Francisco that accesses San Francisco Bay) typically reflect that theory.
Seems like those valley types are always into sports with extremely low fun/equipment cost ratios.
[Link: c|net]
by The Editors on May 7, 2008
Surf legend Gerry Lopez spoke last night at UC Santa Barbara to promote his new book Surf Is Where You Find It.
During his hour-long sermon of surfing lore, Lopez talked about what surfing and the ocean have given to him, as well as how he allowed surfing to shape his life. Lopez was warmly accepted by the crowd of surfing colleagues and fans, eager to hear about his life and his reasons for writing the book. “[My] motivation was to get the stories down on paper before I forgot them,” Lopez said.
Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and cool-guy Dan Malloy were also in the audience. Both think Gerry is amazing. “I got chills six times,” Dan told the Daily Nexus reporter. We know the feeling.
[Link: The Daily Nexus]
by The Editors on May 7, 2008
Modesto, California’s Barefoot Wine, famous for making award-winning California wines, has teamed up with the Surfrider Foundation, to give someone the chance to take a break from their normal job and spend a week in San Clemente helping to keep beaches safe for barefeet. Barefoot Wine will foot the bill. It’s just one part of the Barefoot Wine Beach Rescue Project .
After spending our summer hosting beach cleanups, dune restorations and educational coastal tours with the Surfrider Foundation, we learned that members were contributing up to 20 hours a week on top of their professional day jobs,” said Jeremy Soine, Marketing Manager for Barefoot Wine. “The Surfrider Foundation is passionate about beach preservation, and we’re thrilled to provide the resources to help someone else work with them this summer.”
The big question is: can we drink wine while we work?
[Link: Barefoot Wine]
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by The Editors on May 7, 2008
Surfingodds.com “your premiere surf betting website” has the odds up for the Billabong Pro Teahuppo . And guess who is leading the charge? Kelly Slater at 4:1, followed by AI, Mick Fanning, Joel Parkinson, and Bede Durbidge. For the big money, outside win there’s Taylor Knox at 81:1. Not that we’re promoting gambling or anything of the sort.
by The Editors on May 7, 2008
Volcom’s rising 15-year-old surf star Andrew Doheny is profiled in today’s LA Times .
Doheny is the No. 1 surfer for his age group in the nation based on winning the open juniors championship last July at the National Scholastic Surfing Assn. Nationals in San Clemente. He has won close to 90 NSSA competitions and has earned so many trophies that his parents had to put them in a storage locker because they ran out of room in their house.
Looks like homeschooling has it’s advantages at least in the short term, huh?
[Link: LA Times]
by The Editors on May 5, 2008
Chuck Menzel, the founder of Wetsand.com has sold the wave forecasting portion of his business to the Wasserman Media Group for an undisclosed sum, according to a Josh Hunter story on TransworldBusiness.com. He has, however, retained ownership of the Wetsand store front and commerce site.
It’s the creative side of it that we really wanted to maintain, and I’m still creatively in control of the site, as far as keeping it on track with content and credibility,” he says.
Menzel has been looking for buyers for his popular site for more than a year, and we’re guessing being a part of Sportnet (which also includes action sports sites: surfspot.com, motocross.com, 411vm.com, newschollers.com, skateboard.com and sk8site.com) is going to be a great fit. Especially, as surfspot.com continues to grow its traffic.
[Link: Transworld Business]
by The Editors on May 5, 2008
The body of John M. Wagner, 43, was found in the water about 20 miles south of Ventura yesterday.
Federal park rangers found the body of a missing surfer from San Diego on Friday, several hours after he had disappeared while surfing near Santa Cruz Island. . . A spokesman for the Coast Guard said friends of Wagner reported they had been surfing with him near Santa Cruz Island about 5 p.m., when he went underwater for unknown reasons.
[Link: San Diego Union-Tribune]
