The Association of Professional Towsurfers is forming their own touring competition circuit. It will be interesting to see what kind of mass-media attention the APT garners. The 2004/2005 Maverick’s Surf Contest was broadcast on NBC. If the APT follows suit and really tries to sell their tour to the masses, then it’ll likely attract a lot more attention to surfing in general.
You can read more on the announcement at protowsurfers.org.
Have you ever missed a wave because you were out of breath or because you just weren’t paddling hard enough? Well, here’s a surf workout that’s designed for building core strength. They say 10 minutes 3 days/week. You can read more about this brief workout at surfersvillage.com.
Surfers are in close proximity to stingrays 
all the time. I see them
darting around the shallows when I’m getting in and out of the water. And when the water is clear, I can see them cruising along the bottom when I’m out in the lineup. It’s always a little nerve-racking when you see the sillouhette of a big stingray slowly passing right underneath you. I typically try to take comfort knowing that stingrays are docile creatures and only sting when provoked.
I figure now is as good a time as any to go over the basic rules of living with stingrays:
Yesterday in Florida a 5 ft, 30 lb stingray jumped out of the water and into an 81 yr-old man’s boat and stabbed him in the chest. According to this article the man seems to be doing OK, though open heart surgery may be necessary in order to remove a piece of the stingray barb that’s stuck inside him. The stingray died.
That is really extraordinary, especially so soon after Steve Irwin’s fatal encounter with a stingray last month.
Don’t be surprised when Hollywood comes out with a Jawsesque stingray franchise film.
According to Wikipedia
Broceanography is surf jargon for the ability to predict when and where to surf on a given stretch of coast.[1] It is an interdisciplinary field of study, drawing on meteorological, oceanographic and geographical information, to ensure that ideal surf conditions are never missed. One who practices broceanography is referred to as a "broceanographer". The playful application of the "bro" affix to a word originated in Southern California, where a cliquish group of surfers decided to affirm their membership of the surfing sub-culture by retro-fitting existing language with "bro-fixes". The practice does not appear to have spread beyond the United States.
That’s a pretty fair technical definition of the term. I’d say if you put any thought into deciding where/when to surf, then you might as well call yourself a broceanographer.
Also, I find it difficult to believe that nobody outside the U.S. is using bro-fixes. Can I get a brah-men?
Interested in making your very own surfboard? Who isn’t, right? Surfer Steve does a good job of walking you through the process. And if you do get around to making a board, send us a picture.
70percent.org posted a cool thread from Swaylock’s Surfboard Design Forum that documents the construction of a hollow wooden surfboard, so I thought I’d offer a little more on the history of hollow wooden boards.
Back in the 1930’s, when people were riding boards that were basically just solid planks of wood that weighed up to 100 lbs, an innovative waterman by the name of Tom Blake started producing hollow boards that were nearly half as heavy. Back then this was a major technological leap by any measure, especially when you consider the fact that Polynesians had been riding solid wooden boards for about 2,000 years.
You can read more on the history of wooden boards at http://www.woodsurfboards.com and you can ogle pictures of some nice modern wooden boards at http://www.hollowsurfboards.com.
It’s nice to see people still making them like they used to.
There’s a story in the Santa Cruz Sentinel about veteran local surfers banding together to prevent surf schools from holding group surfing lessons at Pleasure Point. The surfers claim that the surf schools are over crowding the surf spot, creating a safety hazard for all who frequent the spot. The surfers and the surf schools are currently in talks to create legislation that regulates the impact of the surf schools on surf spots.
My gut tells me that the overcrowding trend isn’t going to reverse itself anytime soon. Ultimately we’re going to need more waves. Luckily, people are already working on making more waves in the ocean and on land.
Apparently there weren’t enough waves at the Bay of Plenty, so they had to make more. The Kiwi’s Mount Reef project seems to be a success in terms of the quality of waves that it’s creating. "The artificial reef is designed to have a primary purpose of creating high quality surfing waves. A database showing the shape of world-class surfing breaks has been utilised to design the reef with sophisticated computer models…" Better still, ASR Ltd claims that "national and international studies show that multi-purpose reefs bring 20-70 times their full construction cost back to the community through visitor spending." I think the Mount Reef project ran about 1,350,000 NZD, but don’t quote me on that – check out what happens when you click their link to where the money has gone.
Time will tell how well the Mount Reef holds up. If it proves to be sturdy, then I’d imagine we’ll see more reefs like them being installed at some of the world’s more crowded beaches.
Lots of great pictures and videos that document the entire project from start to finish on the Mount Reef website.
