Ask Carroll

[swvic]

Maybe he's referring to young Tom. Was on tele here tonight. Prodded me a bit more to want to watch him and RCJ do that mad shit

[el rancho]

I was down the road checking a spot and noticed this 100kg muscle-bound block pulling his SUP off the roof of his 4wd.

Dunno if he'd noticed he was about to try paddle out thru wall to wall close outs in a foot of water.
Like the waves were noticeably churning with sand every time.
I wanted to stick around and watch the calamity but ended up surfing kirra.

[spork]

Yeah surfed with a SUP the other day, a beginner on a massive blue tanker. I watched him blow three waves before I decided to just go when he was paddling. It was 3ft and clean, mostly lefts and karma came for my friend when he blew another wave and his leggy snapped way out the back. Apparently its really hard to swim with a paddle and by the time he got in his ultra light container ship was thoroughly trashed on the rocks. Oddly, nobody on the beach seemed to give a damn.

[el rancho]

I'd weep with joy if I witnessed that spork.

[Davros]

Heres one Nick. What do you think of Tom Currens influence on modern surfing and do you reckon you could draw parallels to Wayne Lynch years before re: style, progression and all round greatness. Just throwing it out there.

[Nick Carroll]

ah I think Curren's influence far surpasses Wayne's.

AI's my all time favourite surfer but to me Tom Curren has the best surfing style ever realized. He directly influenced everyone who succeeded him at the elite level of the sport, along with hundreds of thousands of more normal surfers for whom his precision and correct technique provided a vital example.

He was progressive in the sense that he, more than anyone else, showed the surfing world what was possible on a thruster, and laid down a template both for the whole KS New School revolution and for the many fantastic surfers who came later, like Parko, Andy, Rasta and numerous others. He was also able to ride a wide variety of boards and thus continue to change how surfers saw their sport long after he'd finished winning world titles.

Tommy is a bit media shy but he stepped into the world far more than Wayne did and revealed his surfing in a far broader set of circumstances. I guess some of that was a result of different days etc but it ensured that his influence was spread as widely as possible over many years of surfing and competing.

Anyway they're both great surfers from different times and as such are a bit hard to clearly compare beyond that very general analysis.

[aaronn]

and
http://mankindunplugged.com/wp-content/ ... rfer_1.jpg

http://sloblogs.thetribunenews.com/side ... /Goofy.jpg

[godsavetheking]

Nick, I'm henceforth planning on referring to you in conversation as 'the doyen of Australian surf journalism'. Is that OK?

Secondly, why has Roxy chosen Grande Plage as the venue for their comp? In my experience it is always terrible and suffers dreadfully at the hands of the set-your-watch-by-it daily onshore. (Not to mention that at this time of year, month-long flat spells in France are hardly uncommon.) Surely these standalone women's comps that don't piggyback a men's event need a bigger draw than a pleasant retail experience and some sensual shots of Steph Gilmore's bum?

[tootr]

Thinking about this years winter holiday, and dont want to go to bloody bali again..

Is hawaii feasible for some sort of decent surf this time of year?

[Nick Carroll]

Nick, I'm henceforth planning on referring to you in conversation as 'the doyen of Australian surf journalism'. Is that OK?

Secondly, why has Roxy chosen Grande Plage as the venue for their comp? In my experience it is always terrible and suffers dreadfully at the hands of the set-your-watch-by-it daily onshore. (Not to mention that at this time of year, month-long flat spells in France are hardly uncommon.) Surely these standalone women's comps that don't piggyback a men's event need a bigger draw than a pleasant retail experience and some sensual shots of Steph Gilmore's bum?

Ha ha wellif I'm the doyen what the hell is shearer

and don't say "enfant terrible", for one thing he's almost older than me

It's an interesting question though. Biarritz is the only location where a men's WCT has actually been cancelled partway through for lack of surf. It was a Quiksilver Pro in the mid 90s and they couldn't get past the round of 16 so just split the money.

Institutional memory appears to have failed them here. Though of course everybody involved in that Quik Pro will have departed Quik's fair shores by now.

Other than that, shit I dunno, do they need surf? Sorry, temporarily unable to take women's pro surfing seriously.

[Nick Carroll]

Thinking about this years winter holiday, and dont want to go to bloody bali again..

Is hawaii feasible for some sort of decent surf this time of year?

Are you kidding? Want a really special holiday, redolent with deep layers of classic Hawaiian surf culture? Rent an apartment on the South Shore. Preferably along the coast just west of Waikiki, somewhere near the Outrigger Canoe Club. And spend 10 days surfing the south shore reefs, from China Walls (a super fun deeper water left point) all the way down past Ala Moana Harbour. Explore different kinds of surf craft, outriggers, SUPs, racing paddleboards, whatever, they all fit that water. Go talk to the guys like Clyde Aikau who run the board rental concession stands near the Duke's statue at Queens. In late July you can go down to Hawaii Kai and watch the finish of the Molokai race and laugh at the poor bastards. Drive around to Sandy Beach and Makapu'u and go bodysurfing in the craziest shorebreak ever. Spend a day driving up the east side, it's fcuken awesome, and check out the North Shore without the whole winter scene seething on it (there's sometimes small waves on the North Shore in summer).

A good south swell can light up dozens of super fun and sometimes excellent reefs along the south shore.

I dunno, I have always gone there in summer on a mission (ie Molokai) but have always found it a really cool trip in almost every way.

[Dougal]

Dearest Nick,

What's it like watching the Molokai & has anyone caught leprosy by taking part?

[OddaP]

^^what size surf Nick. Sounds like a great idea.

Re your comments AI, what was it that made him your favourite surfer? Been watching a bit on YouTube and he always seemed unpredictable and aggressive.

[Nick Carroll]

Surf can be anywhere between 2' and 6'.

re AI, "unpredictable and aggressive", you say that like it's a bad thing. Kelly once said Shane Dorian surfed like "a cat on acid". AI surfed like a very big predatory cat on acid. He really grew into himself over the years and had an ideal physical structure for modern surfing, long and strong and flexible with superb reflexes -- a sprinter, not a jogger. He developed great surfing instincts quite early, which is kinda funny because he hated the ocean as a kid (his Dad chucked him in too early) and only got into it properly around the age of 9 or 10. His Mum's family boasts some big gun downhill skiers so there's some DNA there I reckon. I really liked the way he drew from the generations of surfers before him and understood them all really well, he paid more attention to the 80s generation of Pottz, Currren, Carroll, Occy, Elko etc than to any other single group of surfers and pulled their power rail carving and devil may care style antics into his repertoire along with all his own amazing ammunition of post New School air work and hairball Hawaiian barrel riding expertise. He manhandled waves other people didn't even want to look at and he sorta wore his heart on his sleeve as a surfer, his moods sprang forth out of the nature of his turns in a wonderful natural way. His extremely fertile surfing imagination was always at the forefront and it drove him to produce staggering arrays of moves on a single wave, a spontenaity rare in any surfing era. Plus he was a heap of fun to surf with, I did a few trips with him over the years to amazing surf spots and he never tried to take over the lineup, instead he'd inspire everyone with his surfing and sit in line for set waves without a care.

I guess also there's some personal taste involved, he surfed the way I'd always wanted to surf and could ever have imagined surfing.

Plus he had Kelly's nuts in a vice. Which however you want to look at it, was a good thing. I think it was good because I get a bit weary of all the "Kelly's a super freak and not human" shit, well, Andy had him cold and Andy was nothing if not human.

[alakaboo]

Nick, Andy seemed to have a different barrel riding stance to a lot of surfers, with his board sitting higher and tighter in the pocket and angled more obliquely towards the shore than across the wave.

Dunno if there is a question in there, but it seemed to make things look more dramatic and allow him to do some incredible things in big barrels, particularly backhand

[OddaP]

No not a bad thing, its raw and it's amazing. The footage of him free surfing and surfing that Search comp at Mexico and he was head and shoulders the top dog, just attacking the wave.

[Nick Carroll]

Nick, Andy seemed to have a different barrel riding stance to a lot of surfers, with his board sitting higher and tighter in the pocket and angled more obliquely towards the shore than across the wave.

Dunno if there is a question in there, but it seemed to make things look more dramatic and allow him to do some incredible things in big barrels, particularly backhand

Well here is another little tiny thought about style in surfing

All surfers have what you might describe as a First Position. First Position in classical ballet is the stance at which you commence and to which you return before and after significant movements.

I won't really get into what I suspect about most surfers' First Positions other than they're generally very unobserved. But AI's First Position was spring loaded. Everything about his body posture, from the cocked trailing arm to the slight tilt of the hips forward and down, was set for instant movement. It meant he was able to develop a no hands backside tube pump well ahead of his peers, and was able to change his board's angle in the barrel with amazing speed. It also meant that his barrel set-ups were performed well ahead of the wave, so he had time to set the board correctly before anything else happened. Watch that Trilogy flick of him surfing the Mex rights, his fades to tube rides, for examples of this.

[aaronn]

andy billabong
joel billabong
nc billabong
bias billabong