Volcom Fiji Pro (or not)

I’ve got to write something right now while I’m still angry. 

What in the most compounded of all fuckery happened today on Fiji!?

“The best surfers in the best waves” an Association of Surfing Professionals world tour mantra. We had the best waves in the world absolutely firing today smack bang in the middle of the competition period for the Volcom Fiji Pro; but we didn’t have the surfers. Well not the ones we should’ve been watching anyway.

This debacle started yesterday really. The swell was forecast well in advance. They got most of rounds 1 and 2 complete a couple of days ago and put the comp on hold knowing it was coming, good intentions and all that. So when yesterday rumours started circulating that they were moving from the preferred Cloud Break to the smaller but no less perfect Restaurants, the Twitterati and the mainstream asked the question why? Rumour turned to almost certainty when all the equipment for the live feed was confirmed as having been moved to Restaurants. Rumour also had it that a lot of the top 34 didn’t want to surf in such big conditions, but Mother Nature stuck a fly in the ointment. At first light this morning the wind was ruining Restaurants and grooming perfect booming Cloudbreak. Back in the boat for the tech guys. The last two heats of Round 2 were completed and some bombs were ridden. Big nasty Cloudbreak just what us punters had been looking forward to.

Then they called off the competition.

On Twitter there was a collective intake of breath, as though it might be a joke.  Then realisation dawned and all hell broke loose. Volcom, to their credit, kept the live feed up and running (wonder if the ASP were happy with this?) but for the people still watching it only added to the perplexity of why they had called it off. Free surfers, and the odd tour surfer, were getting spat out of once in lifetime barrels while the majority of the ASPs top 34 surfers sat in the resort on Tavarua Island and watched the same live feed as us. It was spectacular. There was no commentary.  Just giant perfect waves being ridden by metaphorically giant men. Kelly got invited to commentate for a while and, exemplary diplomat that he is, circumvented the pointy bit but summarily hit a couple more nails in the world tours coffin. Let’s be honest the vast majority of surfers do not have the skills to tackle those conditions, but you would expect the Top 34 to? And with that expectation, send them out there, if they fail no one will think anything other than they don’t deserve to be in the premier league, and that would be the truth.

Not only was it the fans questioning the ASP but also journalists, other pros and institutions. Everyone was waiting for an answer… none came. None has come.  As if the ASP hasn’t got enough on its plate with a dwindling client base a God fearing leader and a duff calculator, now this. It helps not one little bit that they don’t interact with their market. They are on twitter they have a website and a Facebook page and they say bugger all.

The whole ASP World Tour has today been shown up for the sham that it is. The person involved that should be most pissed off is the 11x champion Kelly Slater. What does this do to his championship winning credibility’s? Fortunately, amongst surfers globally, it is pretty much a given that he is genuinely the best surfer in the world, but when opened up to the rest of the non-surfing planet his star cannot help but be tarnished by these sort of events.

Sad sad day for the “sport” (eeugh) of surfing today. I feel cheated. I feel, as a surfer, that myself and my fellow sliders have been let down and made to look slightly tardy.  Below is an extract of a rant I had last year (my first on this blog), still an idea but whad’ya think?

“An alternative to the tour. I don't mean necessarily scrap the existing tour but lets not make it the be all and end all of competitive surfing. How about for instance all the big sponsors put a prize pool in a hat at the beginning of the year (the accountants will like this it'll be a set amount). Money is awarded commensurately to the surfers with the most image exposure monthly, in print, on line or any type of media. Adverts count, this is important because it means sponsors can boost their riders exposure. This has the added benefit that the mags are back in the driving seat, perhaps they could allocate just enough space to print, publish and pay themselves and let the sponsors race for the space. If a sponsor wants their surfer exposed they need to kowtow. It also means that good surfers who don't necessarily partake in competitions can gain some ground. Not sure how this would work internationally as mags tend to be necessarily jingoistic but I'm sure someone could come up with a sliding scale or algorithm to balance this out (maybe not Brodie Carr).  As I said it's just an idea. But you gotta admit something has to change.”

Just as an aside. One of the highlights of today was the live ticker tape feed along the bottom of the webcast, showing all tweets tagged #volcomfijipro. There was no filter on this feed and as soon as this was realised the feed became worth tuning in for alone. 

I'm in!

So I’m part of the surf industry now?  Maybe, sort of, but I’m bloody stoked whatever! I have a new job. It involves surfing and I am obsessed by surfing, this is a win win.  

Upon arriving on the Sunshine Coast 18 months ago I started getting together a quiver and my second purchase was a used board made by a local shaper called Bart, the template was taken from a Neal Purchase Jnr “sweet pea” and on its first outing I fell in love with it. On its second outing I snapped it. I got hold of the guy I bought it off just to get Bart’s number and took it down to his shed.

That’s how I met my new boss.  Since that first meeting I’ve been plying my normal trade which is painting and decorating and popping in to see Bart only when I needed boards fixed and for him to shape me (another) copy of the sweet pea.  Then he asked if I could do some painting at his house. It was here that I made up my mind to ask him for a job. He was flat out trying to keep with all the repairs from a recent run of good swell and was rueing the fact that he didn’t have time to do any shaping. Serendipitously the day I went to his shed to ask him, the bloke (Josh) who I bought that first board off was there. I hadn’t seen him since the day I picked it up. I took this as a good sign.

Well obviously he took me on. I have no knowledge whatsoever of ding repairs so a two day a week training period has been agreed on meaning I can do some painting for my old boss too. In the four days I’ve done so far I’ve learnt heaps. Bart’s not afraid to let me cock things up and is patient and subtle when I have. Without planning we’ve already fallen into a bit of routine. I de-wax, he preps the ding, I fill, he sands, I glass and apply filler coat, he sands to a finish and I clean them ready to go back in the rack. It works and we’re clearing a back log which means more time for him to shape and more opportunities for me to learn are on the horizon. 

Things I have learnt already;  Buy from your local shaper. He will generally be a smaller operation and will oversee the quality of his finished product even if he does not glass it himself. Big brands equals big staff working fast to maximise margin which inevitably leads to quality issues. Boards from Asia can be good but it’s a bit like Russian roulette, unless you can spot the inadequacies (and I can’t yet) you could be getting the bullet. Carbon strips are generally cosmetic and make a repairer’s job harder, and in some instances actually make the board weaker by poor placement. 

As my knowledge progresses I’ll add bits on here. Bart happily confesses to knowing bugger all about social media but we can learn from each other and hopefully before long we can have a blog direct from the workshop. Watch this space.