Pittwater Life April 2017 Issue

PL’s APRIL SURF CALENDAR
April 1-9: WSL CT Druh Aware Margaret River Pro, WA
April 12-24 WSL CT Rip Curl Pro, Bells Beach, VIC
These two, big double-header Championship Tour events will
go a good way to telling us who’ll be the world champs in 2017.
They will complete a solid month and a half of WSL CT competition
in Australia, following the recent Quiksilver Pro at Snapper;
whoever survives these three events with the ratings leads will
have done the serious work in what looks to us like a tricky year.
The men’s field is not quite as fractured as last year, but there’s
been one surprise win already (Owen Wright at Snapper) and at
least one title contender, Brazil’s Gabriel Medina, is struggling
under a knee injury. In the women’s, the field looks even stronger
with the return of Californian Lakey Peterson, who spent last
year out with injury; Lakey is an uncompromising power surfer
who was the only one to really challenge Snapper winner Steph
Gilmore. Most of all, the standard in both men’s and women’s
is incredibly high – these events are worth watching just for the
spectacle. Check ’em out live at worldsurfleague.com or on the
WSL Facebook page.
NICK’S APRIL SURF FORECAST
Geoffrey Chaucer went on about April’s “sweet showers”; well
I think we have had enough of showers, sweet or otherwise.
It’s sooo time for a weather swing and April’s probably gonna
provide it, with signs pointing to a strengthening Southern
Ocean wind band through the month. This will bring some
real autumn days to our coast, days of cooler southerly and
south-west winds in between calmer conditions with light
seabreezes. Ooooo fantastic! But surf-wise this month may
actually suck. Unless those southerlies have semi-wintry
muscle behind them, very little in the way of serious surf will
get around the corner of Tasmania, and with the tradewind
band temporarily shifting away to our north, there’s unlikely to
be a whole lot of surf from that angle either. Some pretty cool
small wave sandbars around though thanks to all that March
surf action, so what swell there is should be a lot of fun. Get
into it and brace yourselves for a more tumultuous May.
Nick Carroll
being pulled into someone
else’s fantasy, about some
board I might never have seen
in my life?
But he really seemed to
want to give me this board
– said he lived in Taree and
would be back down in a few
weeks and would bring it with
him – so I gave him my email,
thinking, Well, it can’t get too
weird, can it?
The few weeks passed.
It was early summer, a lot
was happening. I half forgot
about David and this board.
Then he sent me an email
and a contact number: he’d
be down with his family on
Saturday, could we meet at
the Newport Peak viewing
platform? I almost forgot that
too – dashed down a minute
or so late.
There was David, with his
family. And there was the
board. I looked at it and a
quarter century disappeared.
The board is 6’4”, a
swallowtail six-channel handshaped
for me by the late
great Allan Byrne in November
1989. It was part of a series
of boards I’d been working
on with AB through the back
half of the ’80s, boards
so advanced and indeed
so outright challenging in
their slashed-out fighter jet
appearance that only one top
pro of the time, Gary Elkerton,
would ride them – and Gary
lived in perpetual fear that the
other guys would cotton on.
“Christ, I hope Pottz (Martin
Potter) never gets one,” he
used to mutter. Pottz didn’t,
not that it ended up mattering.
Celebrating 25 Years
I picked it up, almost
frightened to touch this
talisman of a past time. Its
lines and curves seemed
harsh and unyielding
through modern eyes. Yet
the memories of surfs on this
board came leaping back into
the present day. More than
the memories, the actual
sensations. Back came great
days riding it at Bells Beach in
March 1990, where those hard
lines matched Bells’ fast open
walls. My body shook with
the muscle memory of long
chattering turns on cold winter
days, of westerly winds and
deep tube rides in the angled
Sydney sun of June and July.
David was smiling shyly. I
looked at him and didn’t know
what to say. “I’ve got this too,”
he said, handing me a folded
sheet of paper. “It’s how I
knew for sure it was yours.” It
was the note I’d written and
stuck on the board when I put
it in the second-hand racks
at Mullet’s Surf Shop for sale
that August, 1990. We were
moving to California at the
time and I wasn’t ever gonna
ride that thing in the soft
waves of SoCal.
“Thanks, David,” I said. I’d
brought him down a bottle of
wine, which as an exchange
for this memory, now felt
about as inadequate as words.
Day at Dunbar Park, Avalon,
on Sunday, April 9. The event
will feature board displays
with craft dating back to the
1930s, board value appraisals,
and sales, plus a range of
stalls with other stuff – art,
clothing, furniture, and so
forth. The event starts at
10am and runs until 4pm,
with bands and food and beer
stalls adjacent near the Avalon
Bowling Club. It’ll be pretty
much the next best thing to
surfing all day. See ya there.
Nick Carroll is a leading
Australian and international
surf writer, author, filmmaker
and surfer, and one
of Newport’s own. Email:
ncsurf@ozemail.com.au
* * *
If you’ve got a board like
my 6’4”, or want to look at
a bunch of boards like it, or
want to buy or sell one, or
just want to hear a bunch of
stories about fibreglass, come
up to the Avalon Board Swap
APRIL 2017 39
Surfing Life