Ask Carroll

[alakaboo]

Maybe they should stop paying the bottom 30 surfers making up the numbers

[Nick Carroll]

Not sure what the point is, seeing as it's only really been a going concern for less than forty.

OK let me elucidate

Professional surfing began in a sorta piecemeal fashion. 1970 Smirnoff Pro, 1971 Pipe Masters, 1973 Bells, 1974 Coke contest and so forth. What all the people involved had in mind was their complete belief that surfing was an epic sport that needed to be shown to the world. This was true of Fred Hemmings, Graham Cassidy, Stan Couper and all the surfers who lined up to take part in their hilariously hopeful events. Disregarding their own personal attitudes and flaws etc, they were all utterly smitten by surfing's potential and wanted to see it fulfilled.

It's weird but true. Surfing does that to people. Even people you've never met, even people whom you'd never suspect of harbouring such feelings for it.

This is what drove these and other people to seek the help of all those seemingly unattached companies and their chequebooks: Smirnoff, Jose Cuervo, Sunkist, Offshore, Amco, 2SM, Coca-Cola, Stubbies, Beaurepaires, ad infinitum. These sponsors came and went, their support fluctuating in tune with a wide range of factors. But none of 'em except maybe Coke had a reason to stick around beyond a year or so.

However, it carried pro surfing through to a time in which a business platform was built around it - the surf industry.

Surf companies expanding their reach were the only business people in history who could really construct a rationale for long term support of pro surfing. They jumped in in different ways, I won't bother getting into that here. But over time, as their ambitions expanded globally, they (the big ones) all saw the marketing opportunity affording them by pro surfing, with its surf stars and global appearances.

This is why they orchestrated the shafting of Cassidy and co in 1995. It cleared the decks for controlling the tour.

Trouble was they still had a fair bit of that cottage industry DNA in 'em and they wouldn't really support the ASP in the way it required. Most of those companies were dismissive of the ASP crew, they had the arrogance of self-made corpos written into them. They let the ASP go broke in the late 1990s as much out of contempt as anything.

Entre Greville, the cricket-playing investor genius whose kids were soooo into surfing it hurt. The one I know best, Al, worked at ASL for a while as art director, he is as core a surfer as anyone I know and a golden human to boot. Anyway. Greville came to the ASP via Graham Stapelberg who at the time was in the ASP hot seat. Greville's business acumen and a large injection of his money saved the tour's bacon at a time when the surf cos weren't taking it seriously. The experience soured Greville toward the companies, as one might imagine. But he invested out of the same motive that drove Fred and co in the 70s, a real passion for the sport and a desire to see it succeed.

That was all around 1998 to 2002. By then the surf cos had enough moolah to drive the ship themselves. I am not saying there weren't a lot of people in those organisations who didn't love surfing, but again, these cos were the only ones in history to have a business case for supporting professional surfing, and they conducted themselves accordingly.

That business case began evaporating about three years ago. and guess what? Along comes an American billionaire whose family has a yen for surfing.

Do we see a pattern here?

Fcuk maybe I should write a book on this hey. The whole thing is just so weird.

[Nick Carroll]

I dunno...the word "league" makes u think of " teams"

The format is decades old and showing it.

A team title under the skins system could breath life into it and turn some $$$$

Well the Carroll brothers are big believers in Fitzy's slalom system.

Imagine: at Teahupo'o: the top 12 surfers in the event, lined up in the takeoff zone. One by one each of them have a crack. 10 minutes of free time in the lineup by themselves, pick the best wave they can. First Kelly, then Fanning, then Gabriel, then JJF, then whomever, etc. The they go through again. The leaderboard changes with each round and you know what each surfer needs to score in order to move up (or down). There's no lame one on one priority shit to confuse matters. It's like skiing or snowboarding or whatever - pure performance, focused on the individual within the group.

Chances of the tour changing its format some time very soon, I would say is pretty good actually.

[foamy]

Well summed up Nick.
I enjoy pro surfing, mainly because I just like watching the waves, surfed or not surfed. Then, when you see those brief magic moments of wave riding being performing at a flabbergasting level of beauty and excellence, well it just takes your breath away.

Needless to say it will never be a mass sport for all the obvious reasons. Not the least of which is its glorious unpunctuality.

Your reflections reminded me of Sean Doherty's piece at Bells. Gee whiz, that little ocker bloke can write beautifully. Writing about Dirk Ziff, standing on the low tide reef at Rincon, trying to make sense of his doomed (I think) surfing enterprise.

Below an excerpt from.
http://www.coastalwatch.com/surfing/130 ... beach-2014

"If you’d looked carefully on the broadcast this morning, as the drone cameras shot wide panoramas of the Bells headland, you would never have noticed a slim figure in blue jeans and a hoodie standing on the low tide reef at Rincon, indistinguishable from the thousands of sports-mad Victorians who were flooding down to Bells Beach on Easter Sunday. As waves ran down the reef and surfers flew down the line, he stood there in bare feet on the carpet of bubble wrap seaweed making a phone call, presumably back home to the east coast of the United States. Standing anonymous amongst a few dozen early morning surf fans was Dirk Ziff, the mysterious billionaire backer of pro surfing who has quietly slipped into town to check out for the first time exactly what it is he now owns.

Your correspondent’s request for an audience with the mysterious Ziff was met with a polite chuckle from the official channels. Dirk don’t do press. It was here last year at Bells that his name first popped up in conversation as the sport’s new owner, but in that year we still haven’t learned anything much else about why he’s forked out what’s reported to be $40 million to bankroll this thing.

Billionaires in Australia have a tendency to be larger than life, huge, cartoonish characters who create their own weather and attempt to leave their imprint on the national identity. Mind you, we’ve only got a handful and most of them have made their money simply by selling dirt to Asia, but the American variety have a tendency to make money from money and happily stay out of the public eye. Dirk spent the afternoon with his family sitting in a modest demountable building behind a closed door, watching the ancient ritual play out in front of him… rebranded, repackaged, and in search of a new audience.

The new owners are banking on making surfing a sport. Like, a real sport. One with flying robot cameramen, and a mahogany desk for its announcers. In Victoria, they have found fertile ground, for here life is sport. Just pick up the Sunday newspaper and read in 20 pages from both front and back and all you’ll get is sport. Sport, sport, sport. Even art is classed as a sport here, and the VIP areas here are crawling with football stars and big-time jockeys and racing car drivers, all of whom are avid surfers and have helped cross this humble surfing event over into the mainstream conscience here in Victoria. The Rip Curl Pro is big news here; as big as the F1 Grand Prix and the AFL grand final and the Melbourne Cup horse race. For the past two days the road into the event has been closed mid-afternoon with the “full house” sign up, the event sold out, every square inch of sand occupied by engaged and knowledgeable punters, few of whom actually surf. While strong pockets of resistance to the whole ideology of pro surfing still thrive in other parts of the world, Bells continues to be a flagship of surfing as a sport. If the new owners of pro surfing could pack this crowd up and take them to Trestles, all their dreams would come true."

[Karlos]

Has anyone mentioned the greatness of the name Dirk Ziff?

Ziff... Dirk Ziff.

[steve shearer]

Well the Carroll brothers are big believers in Fitzy's slalom system.

Imagine: at Teahupo'o: the top 12 surfers in the event, lined up in the takeoff zone. One by one each of them have a crack. 10 minutes of free time in the lineup by themselves, pick the best wave they can. First Kelly, then Fanning, then Gabriel, then JJF, then whomever, etc. The they go through again. The leaderboard changes with each round and you know what each surfer needs to score in order to move up (or down). There's no lame one on one priority shit to confuse matters. It's like skiing or snowboarding or whatever - pure performance, focused on the individual within the group.

Chances of the tour changing its format some time very soon, I would say is pretty good actually.[/quote]

That might work at Narrabeen or another east coast break with tons of waves but I think what we need and the public are crying out for are to see the best surfers surfing longer and more unrestricted heats...not ten minutes.

I want to see guys out there like in the Eddie for an hour or two at Teahupoo, where we can really see who is in rhythm and on fire. Ten minutes is too short.

[Nick Carroll]

The piecemeal sponsorships of the 70's-80's are hilarious. Can you imagine the pisshead execs trying to throw their weight around at the beaurepaires?

Oh they totally did! I think that was a big part of the charm - they got to spend a couple of days at the beach and at various functions.

Even if the contest sites were pretty shit by today's standards, all suspect scaffolding and floppy tents and reconditioned portable classrooms.

It was often a weird collision of worlds, these suited blokes from corporate blokes-world and the harum-scarum but still scruffily glamorous pro surfers with their hot chicks and empty wallets, but everyone mostly got on pretty well, the surfers appreciated the money and the red-nosed suited blokes appreciated perving on the chicks.

[foamy]

The piecemeal sponsorships of the 70's-80's are hilarious. Can you imagine the pisshead execs trying to throw their weight around at the beaurepaires?

Oh they totally did! I think that was a big part of the charm - they got to spend a couple of days at the beach and at various functions.

Even if the contest sites were pretty shit by today's standards, all suspect scaffolding and floppy tents and reconditioned portable classrooms.

It was often a weird collision of worlds, these suited blokes from corporate blokes-world and the harum-scarum but still scruffily glamorous pro surfers with their hot chicks and empty wallets, but everyone mostly got on pretty well, the surfers appreciated the money and the red-nosed suited blokes appreciated perving on the chicks.

Ahhhh, good times. I bet there was even free beer.

[bobjs]

Nick, what would you deem to be the generalised variances in the "styles of surfing" that best embodies and "typifies" surfers in general from their given locations in Australia. i.e; general style/approach/look of surfing ? and if so, what are your examples ?

...we have developed distinct surfing styles and even body types based on the waves we ride. In southern Qld surfers seemed really physically stripped back, hardly any body fat but not super muscly either, and they had a natural fluidity in their movements and a swift but unhurried paddling style that clearly related to long pointbreak drag etc. In Sydney surfers were more mesomorphic and vertical turning, snappier paddlers off the mark but essentially sprinters who'd run out of steam on longer paddles, but forceful and a bit dramatic in their movements (and behaviour). In SW WA, surfers were big, strong, quiet on land and in the water, but very direct in their movements and great at holding a turn in place. Their behaviour and physiques were all in line with the kind of surf conditions they'd encountered from a young age.

Following this, how do you think the different types of waves we ride in Australia, particularly east coast versus southern & western coastlines has influenced, or should influence, board design in the different regions.

It surprises’ me how the standard HPSB seems fairly unchanged between regions when the waves are so different.

[steve shearer]

I'm always struck when I go to Vicco, all the locals riding DHD's etc etc and how badly they look on the local, flatter faced waves there.

[PeepeelaPew]

...

[tiger]

Parnell is infecting them with his inane commentary, since when has any real surfer (Ross Williams) referred to a cutback or carve, as a "cut"?

Pretty soon they'll all be "sending it to the top", and using the word "awfully" an awful lot.

[Nick Carroll]

Following this, how do you think the different types of waves we ride in Australia, particularly east coast versus southern & western coastlines has influenced, or should influence, board design in the different regions.

It surprises’ me how the standard HPSB seems fairly unchanged between regions when the waves are so different.

Well I don't know about "should", I don't think that's the way to look at it really, I mean what do you surf like? What do I surf like?

But yeah, it is an interesting subject. Like back in the early to mid 60s, almost everyone in Australia rode fairly similar equipment. There wasn't much localised design separation at all. But over time, given the surf conditions and types of surfers involved, board design evolved quite rapidly around local conditions. I remember being blown away as a kid in the mid 70s, comparing Joe and Thornton's Van Straalen round tails to our Col Smiths. The design ideas were really influenced by each other but really divergent based on the types of wave being ridden. I've gotta say they weren't always the right ideas for the locations by the way, but they were different.

Some boards seemed to work everywhere, like I can't think of a place where Colin Smith's beetail Fluid Foil channels didn't work, he ripped on those things at Narrabeen, Margaret River, Bells, Burleigh, wherever. Other boards didn't seem to work very well even in the waves they'd supposedly been made to ride. But generically over time you could see the slightly thicker boards being made for Vicco and West Oz, the more refined low railed boards for Qld points, and the wild lil twin fin swallows for Sydney and other East Coast beachies.

To me the West Oz shapers are probably the ones whose skills went most unfairly noticed, some of those guys like Col Ladhams and Greg Laurenson had beautiful rocker curves very similar to Hawaiian shapers.

I think there are still a lot of board makers who design largely for their local waves but they have also moved with the times and with what people want them to make. Surfers are influenced by many things, not just what they get up and check in the morning. This has always been true, otherwise why the fcuk would guys have ridden pulled-in 7' single fin pintails in Sydney slop in the early 70s? They wanted to surf like Lopez. They hadn't fully absorbed the idea that they weren't surfing Pipeline.

[Beanpole]

...but they had lightning bolts on them. It must be like pipe.

[PeepeelaPew]

...

[godsavetheking]

If the ASP truly does want to bring this thing into the mainstream, encouraging their lead commentators to create an entirely new set of arcane terminology that even time-served surfers would struggle to define out of context seems spectacularly fucken dumb.

The desk I can't give any opinion on as I instantly hit mute the minute Todd Kline starts doing his ridiculous jock talk. Even muted though, I thought Slater looked particularly uncomfortable during his brief stint

[Bobby Dazzler]

..... otherwise why the fcuk would guys have ridden pulled-in 7' single fin pintails in Sydney slop in the early 70s? They wanted to surf like Lopez. They hadn't fully absorbed the idea that they weren't surfing Pipeline.

i was recently watching the video for bily thorpe "it's alomst summer" and thought how inappropriate the boards people were riding looked in the summer slop -- yep, 7' pintails!

http://youtu.be/659BB5W838I around the 2.50

[steve shearer]

What boards should we ride and where can we find steeper, hollower waves Steven? Please enlighten all us Vicco kooks when ya find time in your busy schedule eh........

Put your panties back on dearie.
I'm sure you've seen this.
http://www.mauricecole.com/talk/tales-f ... ed-part-2/
https://vimeo.com/30173719

Not sure why anyone with the readies who surf's that surf coast wouldn't have a fleet of MC's in the garage. They just look like they work so much better than QLD boards. They hold speed so much better at the base of the wave.

My view might be skewed too, seeing as I'm only down there when the Easter circus is in town.