Snapper Rocks provided exactly what the men needed to blast through Round 1 of the Formerly Bankrupt Now on Top of the World Pro Gold Coast. The 2016 competitive surf content generation season has officially kicked off and even though Mick Fanning (above) plans to surf a soft production schedule this year, he didn’t act like it today as he blew past trials winner Wade Carmichael and Matting Banting.
“I wasn’t tense, I was laughing and relaxed. Even paddling out in the heat I wanted to surf and get a couple of good waves and it was fun,” said Fanning winning after his heat. “I always just want to go surfing. I’m not as freaked out to be the first one in the water anymore it is more about just surfing when I want to surf and being in love with it.”
Most impressive surfing of the day goes to defending champ Filipe Toledo who used Snapper’s ramps to work his patented arial wizardry. For the official word from the event owning content generation company responsible for this television production please follow the jump.
Kala Alexander shares the mission behind the Mauli Ola Foundation and an event for kids with cystic fibrosis they held in New Zealand during the 2016 Ultimate Waterman competition. It’s always good to see surfers making a positive impact.
Italy’s Leonardo Fioravanti is the newest member of the Smith Global Surf Team.
“Smith is very excited with the addition of Leo to our athlete portfolio,” says Carlos Alves, Director of Marketing at Smith. “Leo is a world class surfer who will bring lots of energy and authenticity to the Smith brand. We are honored to have Leo as part of Smith family.”
For the official word from Smith, please follow the jump.
Jack Freestone has joined Nixon’s global surf team. He’s been wearing the watches for a while, so this is really a promotion.
“It’s exciting to have Jack officially represent Nixon front-and-center,” said Nixon Marketing Manager, Michel Murciano. “He is a part of a new generation in professional surfing and has the ability, smarts and style to take Nixon to a new level.”
For the official word from Nixon, please follow the jump.
Myra Aikau said it best this morning (February 25, 2016), “We are proud to tell you that today, Eddie will go.”
“This is what we’ve been waiting for,” said event director Glen Moncata. ”This is real Eddie. It’s going to be a little morning sick to start as it fills in, but as the trades come on we will be looking at one for the record books.”
The surf looks great, the guys are already up charging (heat 1 is in the water), and really, do you have something better do today? Watch it all live by clicking right here.
For the complete heat line-up and official word from Quik, please follow the jump.
Tatiana Weston-Webb is releasing a signature line of traction with her longtime surf wax and accessories sponsors, Sticky Bumps. She also renewed her contract with the Vista, California based company.
Tati has been with the brand for over 6 years, and this year she will release her signature traction pad for Sticky Bumps, the Tati Signature Traction. 2015 marked Tati’s rookie year on tour, and her incredible surfing resulted in top finishes and earned her requalification for 2016. She finished the year at #7 in the WSL Championship Tour rankings. As the 2016 contest circuit begins in Australia, both Sticky Bumps and Tatiana are eagerly anticipating each event. The Tati Signature Traction will be available online and in stores this summer.
For the official word from Sticky Bumps, please follow the jump.
According to a story in the Sydney Morning Herald, Rip Curl made at least some of their 2015 snowboard outerwear in North Korea, a country known for using slave labor in manufacturing. Of course Rip Curl didn’t mention it until after it was pointed out to them by Fairfax Media. Now the surf wear company is doing everything they can to blame it on their China based contractors.
After Fairfax Media sent Rip Curl photos of its garments being made in North Korea, the company’s chief financial officer Tony Roberts released a statement that said the firm “takes its social compliance obligations seriously. . .We were aware of this issue, which related to our Winter 2015 Mountain-wear range, but only became aware of it after the production was complete and had been shipped to our retail customers. . . This was a case of a supplier diverting part of their production order to an unauthorised subcontractor, with the production done from an unauthorised factory, in an unauthorised country, without our knowledge or consent, in clear breach of our supplier terms and policies.”
Hey, you can’t keep those margins in check without cutting production costs, right? In other news, Kim Jong-un may be getting the boot from his own country for a failing economy.
After one false alarm, The Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau is back on yellow alert for a possible start on Thursday, February 25, 2016.
“We are looking very closely at this swell,” said event director Glen Moncata. “These systems are very hard to predict so we will set up for the event, but we will not make the final call until Thursday morning. We don’t want to disappoint anybody and we will leave it up to the Bay to call the day on Thursday.”
Plan your work and travel days accordingly. For the official word from Quik, please follow the jump.
We join the rest of the surfing world in mourning the loss of big wave legend Brock Little. He died of cancer on Thursday, February 18, 2016. He was 48 years old.
Born in 1967 in Napa, California, Little’s family moved to Haleiwa when he was three years old and he began surfing at age seven. As a teenager, Little was considered to be one of the most talented and hardest-charging surfers of his era and was a stalwart figure at Waimea and Mavericks. In 1986, at only 19 years old, he finished fourth in the Eddie event, solidifying his reputation as being utterly fearless. Just a few years later, in 1990, he finished second in the prestigious contest, amid some of the most harrowing conditions ever seen in the competition.
He was surrounded by family and friends and kept charging till the end. Our thoughts are with Brock’s family and friends. Below is his final post in Instagram from yesterday.
One of our favorite action sporting GPS smart watches, the Garmin Vivoactive, is getting a nice upgrade this spring with the addition heart-rate monitoring, a completely redesigned case, and built-in snowboard activity tracking. The new watch is called the Garmin Vivoactive HR.
The snowboarding app measures 3-D speed by calculating the speed and distance on an incline versus latitude and longitude. It also provides splits automatically and features Auto Pause, which freezes the timer automatically when users stop or ride the lift.
We like it for the snowboarding app, but not only that, the Vivoactive HR does smart notifications better than most. It allows you to get texts and emails (and even answer your phone) on your wrist without having to dig for your phone and it will run for up to eight days on a single charge. For the official word from Garmin, please follow the jump.
