Respect to the creators of Pro Surfing as we know it. They created an industry and a global way-of being in their own images. But there are endless ways of defining what it means to ride a wave, and the guys who Busted Down The Door asserted their way of viewing things in the strongest and most far-reaching manner. Interesting that this cinematic paen to the ‘Sport of Surfing’ comes at a time when surfing is so much more than just a sport in the majority of surfers’ minds. Still, essential viewing for anyone interested in where surfing is, has been or may become.

…is that you can connect sections to the beach. If anyone needs convincing, watch this.

Now I know the very Idea of ’surf music’ is a little cheesey, but check out this firing sequence of The Ventures performing their hit ‘Wipe Out’ and tell me wether or not this stuff is exciting. If it’s possible to get close to the elemental rush and bop and bump and grind of a wild, shifting beachbreak, then this comes pretty close. Imagining hearing this in Southern California 1961 when the world was booming with possibility and Blacks beach was a friendly, obscure little wave. The surfing world was there for the discovery and this must have been truly inspiring. Dig especially that snare.

Now I like a picture of a well-blessed glamour puss like Pammy as much as the next man, but I fail to see what it has to do with Displacement Hulls. Thing is, these surfboards of supreme aesthetic beauty have created quite a cult of late. I couldn’t really seem to get to the bottom of the hype, but I rode a friends’ 8 foot ‘tri-plane’ Hull a few weeks ago on one wave at the end of a particularly clean, sundown surf in North Cornwall and it had me almost understanding. There’s something about the rail shape and the bottom shape that is supremely condusive to stripped-down trim and uncomplicated projection. Espoused by the likes of Californians Manuel Caro, Greg Liddle and Brian Hilbers, the design is changing the way we surf.This is contemporary surfing with true flow. Retro? Forgeddabout it. I’ll dig out some video to hip you.

A couple of interesting scouts from my friend, collaborator and voguish pocket-stylist Alex Rowse this morning. Alex is a little obsessed with the surfing of Michael Peterson. MP was the man who took over the mantle from Nat Young as the leader of the dynamic school of shortboard surfing in the early seventies. He was long armed, supremely athletic, competitive and spectacularly powerful yet managed to remain eminently graceful in the most critical sections of any breaking wave he was blessed with. Anyone who has ever attempted a water-displacing hack should pay homage to the man. The way he wears his green leather jacket is enough to affirm his status.

Heart stopping genius.