Red Bull Reefseekers
Rip Curl buy SDS in Vic, Qld and WA
New swell map and WA great white
SA Shark Attacks
How to be a True Surfer! Not!
 








 Meanwhile, in the middle of Bass Strait...


The Red Bull Reefseekers big wave tow-in event on King Island, situated in Bass Strait (which for overseas readers is between Tasmania and the mainland) was finally cancelled without even getting underway.


Organised by Tony Ray, Ross Clarke-jones and others, for three weeks they tasted the local dairy produce (world renowned), made friends (drank at the local) and tuned their jet skis. But unfortunately never got surf over their GO size, around the 15' mark.


Day 22 of the Red Bull Big Wave Tow-In comp came along and with no swell capable of bringing about a start, their update said it all:



The rain is pissing down
And the some of the little animals may even drown

The surf is small, the wind is crap
Stay much longer and our minds will snap

The waiting period is gone away
Three weeks of bliss ends today

Now it shits me. I'm going to Melbourne to get on it ...


Those interested in what went down can still check their web site at www.redbullreefseekers.com









Rip Curl buys SDS in Vic, Qld and WA.


Anyone following this tale of woe, is aware that on Oct 2, Surf Dive 'N Ski in Victoria, Queensland and WA were placed in administration with debts of around $50 million!!!


The NSW operations of the same name are separately owned and run, therefore not being in any way associated with the problems listed here, and will continue to operate as they have for so long.


$12million of the debt is reportedly just that owed to the ANZ bank for a commercial loan to Ganesh Australia (part of the Daswani Group of Companies), who purchased the business from such surf industry notables as Jim Fisher (formerly of Stussy) and Barry Bennett (Dion Chemicals and Bennettt Surfboards). 


The news now is that Rip Curl have bought the chain for an "undisclosed amount." With 130 employees and a turnover of in excess of $25-20million, plans are for the chain to continue trading in a similar manner to how they always have, somehow independant of Rip Curl.


A lot of surfing companies, including Rip Curl, were left holding the bag after the Daswani Group bolted. Apparently none will receive a brass razoo. Even the secured creditor, the ANZ bank, will be hard pressed to recoup their money, nor should they if they helped the Daswani's to swan in and do their damage to so many smaller businesses. 


One tale of the head of the group summoning his morning tea by daintily ringing a tiny golden bell in palatial Gold Coast offices gives you an insight into why the group failed to do great things in surfing!










New swell indicator link


One of our WA visitors Peter De Gennaro sent through this swell indicator page. We used to have a link to the US Navy pages, but they took ages to download, and then they disappeared. Peter reckons oceanweather.com are 99% accurate, and they sure load quick. Go to 'em direct at: Oceanweather.com 


Peter also re-raised the shark-urine theory after the fatal attack on Perth's Cottesloe Beach:


"I can't help but think 
that urination was involved. The two 
were leaving the beach into the shore
when they were attacked, "Just do a 
piss before I get outta the water."  
The shark smells this and many 
documentaries have shown me that 
sharks sense this smell and 
immediately think a free feed is 
available as urine indicates an 
animal in distress.  A common 
response by animals for shock and 
near death.  Not enough is said 
about urinating in the ocean and I 
never do soley for that reason and 
it can damage the wetsuit.  Sharks 
are known to be in a beach and go 
straight for the person who has 
urinated missing hundreds of other 
beach goers sensing the smell and 
hunting it down." 

 
WA surf identity Wayne Murphy made it onto the Nine Network Today show, commending the powers that be for deciding this great white should be made into flake. Protecting a species is fine, but common sense also has to be applied.


 Derek Hynd's theory was that this Great White could easily be the same one that chomped the guy's waveski a while back. It's migratory route has only just brought it back to Perth.











SHARKKKK!!! Good reasons to avoid SA


Two attacks right by each other in South Australia recently is pretty scary! The one at Cactus really hits home to everyone who has surfed down there, enjoying the desert waves, the isolation of the Nullabor coast.
. 

Nearly everyone has a shark story about the place, I remember publishing one in SW#175 about a big white nosing a guy's board out to sea in 1977, playing with it like it was a blow-up pool toy. 



It's still a spine chilling episode. Pipedream's Murray Bourton taped the interview with Mark "Murph" Bercove who was nineteen at the time, (photo at right of Murph by Bruce Channon):


"That was easily the most terrifying day of my life. We were surfing Outside Castles on a windy morning. Phil (Horley) and I were out the back, while a few of our friends were a little further inside. He was about five or six yards ahead of me when this huge explosion, like a depth charge, went off. 


"I knew a white pointer or something was attacking him, or me, because its tail knocked me off too. I scrambled onto my board and saw Phil about ten to fifteen yards away where he'd been knocked through the air. There was whitewater everywhere and I swivelled around to see the white pointer to the right of me some ten, fifteen yards away, diving out of the water and landing on tip of Phil, or near him. There was a big whirlpool and Phil went down in it.


"I thought, 'Well that's the end of Phil and here goes my head!' I panicked of course and caught a wave in. They reckon I beat the wave to shore.


"Meanwhile Phil had been taken underwater and his legrope had come undone at the plug. Not broken. Actually, apparently the shark, while they were tangled up went past him and its eye was about a foot away from Phil's face. It just brushed past Phil and went for his board. If the legrope hadn't come undone it would have dragged Phil with the board, then seen him and got him.


"Another guy from WA, Peter Backshaw was in the channel and he saw Phil just lying around. Then BOOFFF!!! Out came the fin again and the shark started nosing the board out to sea, playing with it. Backshaw yelled out to Phil, Phil got on the back of his board and they got a wave in.


"He had some heavy gashes to his leg, but they weren't from teeth marks, they were either from when the shark hit him from his board or when he was brushing past him.


"If it had bitten him there would have been nothing left because when we went up the hill and looked down, the shark was like a mini-sub going up and down the swells, nosing the board out to sea."




The Kiwi surfer taken recently unfortunately won't be the last. Big whites!!!! Cactus surfers can have it to themselves.


Russell Hill, purveyor of all sorts of info, passed on some stats that make interesting reading:




200 yrs of shark attacks (not all surfers)




state             total   fatal      last fatal



NSW    211   69   1993




QLD    203   68   1992



VIC    30   7   1997



SA    40   19   2000



WA    51   10   1997



NT    10   8   1993



TOTAL    563   184   
















From the pen of the Sunday Telegraph's Andy Martin


The other notable piece of reading amidst the flood of Olympic info was a piece in the Sunday Telegraph's Sunday Magazine from a journalist by the name of Andy Martin. I mean if it was some guy in some weird journal or web site, I wouldn't even mention it. But this is a huge distribution newspaper that's passing this sort of rubbish on to its readers. 


His main thrust was to talk up the emergence of the ladies in surfing, no problems there, the more girls in the surf the better I know most of us feel.  But check some of these statements he comes up with (which I'm sure make it obvious why, as he also stated, Lisa Anderson avoided the guy):


"I was amazed to learn that if I wanted to be a true surfer I had to make The Choice. I had to choose between surfing and sex. This is the secret gospel, the austere and puritanical creed of fundamentalist surfing. Serious surfers are monks, celibates, saints savings themselves for a spiritual union with the god of the sea.":


and


"Maybe it's because there is a strong homoerotic current to surfing (witness the gay surfers' websites), or maybe it has to do with the assumption that waves are essentially feminine and getting inside them is therefore quintessentially masculine.":


I think this guy has only got one hand on the keyboard and you know what the other one's doing! Rupert Rupert, where do you you dredge them from?






Produced by Bruce Channon


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