February 2009 Archives

The website for one of the hottest talents in the surfing world, Jordy Smith, has gone live! As of right now Jordy is in Australia, eagerly gearing up for his 2009 World Tour campaign and the start of the Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast presented by LG.

So, while we all wait for the swell to hit Snapper and Jordy to bust out, here's a little bit about the new site: It features sick video and photo sections of Jordy doing his thing all around the world. There's also an up-to-the-minute blog and news section so you can chart all the ramblings and wanderings of South Africa's prodigal son. Besides that, find Jordy's profile, biography, as well as his growing list of sponsors, all set to the sounds of some his favourite tunes. But enought of that, what are you waiting for? Click on over to www.jordy-smith.co.za  and explore for yourself.

Stay tuned as RedBullSurfing.com dishes the dirt from the Quiksilver Pro.

Funny thing about being the only representative from your country to make the World Tour, people tend to want to find out just how you're dealing with the pressure. Well, Michel Bourez seems to be cruising through it all, smiling, laughing and having a hell of a time. Michel was recently pinned down by the folks at Transworld Surf and asked all about all that's going on in his world. Read the full interview here.

COOLANGATTA, Australia (Wednesday, February 25, 2009) - With only three days remaining before the Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast pres. By LG launches the 2009 ASP World Tour launches, our European bloggers are currently training at Snapper Rocks. Tim Boal (Anglet, FRA), 25, will be one of three European rookies in Round 1 of the first event and could bring some good surprises if clean waves start rolling over the Superbank. Boal, who suffered a foot injury for three months this winter, has been training on the Gold Coast for a couple of weeks now and it seems like the French Basque surfer is definitely ready to compete against the world's best. Check out Boal's thoughts...
 
"After a long winter and two months away from the ocean, I had a lot of time to think and do other stuff and I must say I had a good time. Being away from contests and surfing has been good, and it made so much happier to get back to work and restart surfing and training. I am definitely feeling good right now after the winter and happy to be back into shape. I feel refreshed and am looking forward to competing again. My foot is 100% back to normal and I have been surfing a couple of times every day since I got to the Gold Coast.

SYDNEY, Australia (Sunday, February 22, 2009) - At 27-years-old, Tiago Pires (Ericeira, PRT) a.k.a Sacca is a national hero in Portugal since he became the first Portuguese surfer ever to qualify for the ASP World Tour in 2008. Pires, who ended his rookie season outside the requalifying squad despite some stellar performances throughout the year, still managed to regain his ticket for the elite division thanks to an ASP World Qualifying Series (WQS) campaign and will be in the starting blocks when the Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast starts next week. He is the third man of the unprecedent 7-European team on tour to give us pieces of life since we left him in Hawaii after he pulled out from the Billabong Pipeline Masters. After a deserved winter break and tough training sessions, Portugal's undisputed surf leader sends some news from Sydney...

"This winter was divided in two for me! The first two or three weeks I went on a vacation away from the ocean, to visit some nice cities like Oslo and Moscow! I could not surf so it was being a bit frustrating to stay at home and watch perfect pits going by. The second part of my winter was pretty much an intense recovery program, in which I had to spend a lot of time in physiotherapy before I started to train at the Gym. I an now part of a new training group led by the Portuguese Rugby Team Coach and the result of this new partnership is that I have never been so stoked and so motivated to improve my fitness! Apart from that, I also enjoyed spending time at home with my family and friends... It was weird to spend two months at home actually, I started to feel like a normal person!

With the start of the 2009 ASP World Tour just a week away, the surf media has busied itself conducting interviews, chasing various leads, and speculating on the merits of this year's rookie class. In the last week both ESPN Surfing and Surfline.com have pulled back the curtain on the new crop of surfers that are jumping onto the world's stage, and with Red Bull's Tim Boal and Michel Bourez part of this rookie class we figured you might want to take a look at what's being said. Some of it's gushing and full of compliments, some of it's kind of brutal, but either way, you're going to be seeing a lot more of Tim and Michel in the coming year, so you'd better start familiarizing yourself with them.

Read ESPN Surfing's 2009 Rookie Preview

Read Surfline's 2009 Rookie Preview

Michel Bourez (PYF), 23, is one of three rookies from Europe to join the ASP World Tour in 2009 and is expected to cause some serious damage when he finds his cruising speed amongst surfing's elite. Bourez, who is the first Dream Tour surfer ever to be sponsored by Nike 6.0 from head to toes, has been busy surfing at home and will join the rest of the European crew in Coolangatta at the end of the week to start ripping the Superbank. Words from the man himself who is more than welcome (=maeva) amongst the world's best surfers to surf the world's best waves...

"The last couple of months have delivered great surf in general with some epic sessions at Teahupoo recently where we had some great fun. We have been blessed with waves in Tahiti and I spent lots of time with my friends surfing every day and relaxing at home. The truth is I haven't been training too much even if i tried but I was really busy with media stuff for my new sponsors and I felt more like a business man than a pro surfer lately...

North Shore, Oahu; Hawaii, Tuesday, 16 February 2009--
The first day of the 2009 Turbo Bodyboards Pipeline Pro is locked, loaded and ready to fire on the North Shore, with excellent conditions and the world's best ready for action.

As the first event on the International Bodyboarding Association (IBA) Men's World Tour for 2009, carrying a Grand Slam status as well as double points towards the championship, there is a lot at stake as the best in business prepare to battle it out at surfing's equivalent of the Pantheon - Pipeline.

With 144 of the world's best riders chomping at the bit to compete at one of most prestigious event's on the IBA Tour, the action is sure to be electric

"Tomorrow is looking like a 99% chance for a start " said Terry McKenna, IBA International General Manager, after surveying conditions and predicted forecasts.

"The swell kicked up to almost 8-10 feet this afternoon and will back off a touch by the morning," McKenna added.

A big congratulations goes out to Kolohe Andino, Evan Geiselman, and Conner Coffin for their recent selection to the USA Surf Team. After an intial team of 30 surfers was selected last August, finally, with the last a week-long training camp behind them--one that included surfing countless mock heats, running a host of drills and exercises, as well as motivational talks by such coaching luminaries as USC football head coach Pete Carroll--it was announced this past weekend that the three Red Bull athletes are among the 16 surfers selected to the traveling team, and will anchor the talent-rich Under 16 squad. In a month's time America's team will ship out to Equador for the 2009 Quiksilver ISA World Surfing Games. Last year it was the powerhouse that is Australia that took top honors, but this year Kolohe, Evan, Conner and the gang have different plans. Stay tuned, the Games get underway this March and we'll be here to bring you all the action...  

While he may not be certified, Ross Clarke Jones is most definitely a lunatic. And if proof was ever needed by a state mental health agency, they'd have to look no further than the latest post on Surfline.com. Garnering the "Sequence of the Week" for his death-defying ride somewhere in the nether regions of Tasmania, Ross seems impervious to the sea's wrath. Lets just hope that remains the case, because it sure makes for some good entertainment.

Check The RCJ "Sequence of the Week" on Surfline 

As you saw here on RedBullSurfing.com, the HIC Pipe Trials went down last weekend in fairly sizable conditions. And while the end result was extremely positive for Gavin Gillette and Jamie O'Brien, what happened with Bruce is an entirely different story...one that you may have to chalk up to "only in Hawaii." With qualification for the Pipe Masters on the line, the system is a bit confusing to say the least. To clairify, eight surfers gained a wildcard berth into the Pipe Masters based on how they placed at the HIC Pipe Trials (which is how Gavin made it). Then there were six wildcard slots available to "Pipe secialists" who were voted in by a their peers (which is how Jamie made it). Whether forgotten, overlooked, or whatever, Bruce didn't make the cut. This week Surfer Magazine's Scott Bass took a more in-depth look at exactly what's going on at Pipe.

Continuing on with his mad scheme to ride any and everything he can get his hands on at Pipe, Jamie O'Brien as announced that he will be entering the the Turbo Bodyboard Pipeline Pro. "I always thought it would be fun to go out there and beat the bodyboards at their own game," told Jamie this winter. "You can get so barreled on a bodyboard, I figured why not go for it." You can read more about Jamie's decision to take it lying down in Surfing Magazine's exclusive interview.

This winter, just as the ink was drying on his new contract with Red Bull, Jordy Smith found himself in the final at Sunset. On his first wave he "got compressed" and essentially destroyed his knee. The 21-year-old South African has since spent the last two months rehabbing, crawling in and out of a hyperbaric chamber, and now with the tour just a couple weeks away from kicking off, he's back in the water. We caught up with Jordy to talk about joining Red Bull, what happened at Sunset, and his plans for next years.

I guess before we get into it, welcome to the family.
Thanks. To be part of Red Bull, it's amazing. The surf team and all the opportunities it affords me, it's like a dream come true. I'll be a part of all kinds of crazy things, I can't wait. Plus, it's a great company. The support is phenomenal. The surf team's not too shabby either. A crew of the best surfers in the world, what more could you ask for?

Do you have anything special in the works?
Well, there's my own site that's being worked on, so that'll be cool when we get that together. Other than that, there's so much on offer it's kind of hard to pick. The tour starts soon, so that's where my focus is, but I'll be doing with training and surf trips with Red Bull, for sure.

If you're in the business of finding new, uncharted surf spots on Google Earth it looks like you've got yourself another tool to monkey around with. The ever-inquisitive folks at Google have announced the introduction of Google Ocean, which will allow you to zoom in on the ocean floor, known as bathymetry by all you oceanographer geeks. Now you'll be able to better understand the influence deep-water canyons, dramatic changes in depth, and the novelty known as refraction will have on the waves you surf...or are planning to surf. Not only that, but by being able to see exactly what lies beneath the surface researchers, scientists and conservationists will better be able to see exactly what's going on in our oceans and how we can best protect them. But for the selfish surfer, it's just one more asset to help track down that illusive perfect wave.

At risk of sounding like the start to a bad joke, how flat is the Pacific? Sorry, no punchline, all I can say is it's just damn flat. While California basks in summer-like weather, us surfers have just been left scratching our heads wondering, "what if?" The conditions are so nice, so all-time that even if we just had a knee-high ripple to ride we'd be stoked. Jordy Smith's split Orange County in search of better swell on distant horizons, Jamie O'Brien, Jamie Sterling along with everyone else in Hawaii's tearing their hair out, and Oz ain't faring much better. Reports from the Gold Coast have it hot, humid, and less than one-foot. So, there you go, there's the bad news. The good news is there's relief in sight. New swell from the southern and northern hemispheres is pulsing, Tahiti and other nooks and crannies in the South Pacific are supposedly getting good, and thankfully these doldroms will soon be behind us.