Inhoudsopgave van October 2019 - Zigzag

If there’s no instruction manual for life, then you can be absolutely certain there ain’t one for surfing. There’s not a hope in hell you’ll be able to make sense of all this by means of a quick YouTube tutorial or a TedTalk. There’s only one way you’re going to unlock the ‘how’ of surfing, and that’s trial and error, my friend. But just like slotting in with a crew who are better than you and finding a mentor to help you push your envelope and tackle bigger waves, we can all lean on the experience of others. You just need the desire to get better. That’s the spirit of Zag’s ‘How To’ Issue. There’s no right or wrong way to surf and I’m grateful for that. Some people last…

Feeling overwhelmed by the escalating existential crises we’re facing? You know, that helpless, sinking feeling that events are spiralling out of control, we’re all going down with the ship and there’s nothing we can do about it. Well you’re not alone. Eco-anxiety is a thing. The Science Journal lays it out as conclusive, “without major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, ecosystems worldwide are at risk of major transformation and even total collapse.” No sugar-coating that turd, humankind is deep in the dwang! But that doesn’t mean you should lose hope, curl up in a ball and wait for the apocalypse. The fight for the planet is gonna take longer than our lifespans, the stakes are enormous and the time to act is right now. But it’s not a fait accompli,…

Your main WhatsApp group is called Barrel Brus, but you’re on a bunch of others, such as South Coast Fish Heads, Dungeons Keepers, Pier Pressure, Grannies Who Shred, and the Wave Pool Wannabes. However, as a keen surfer obsessed with good waves, you find your hit rate lower than desired, despite the digital candy store at your fingertips. The skunk factor - exacerbated by the randomness spewed out by climate change - can be high. Remember when Rocklands, for want of a random generic surf spot, was rated ‘five stars’ but when you got there, it wasn’t even one? There was gnashing. There was wailing. You drove from the 2ft onshore muck, ears burning at the vloeking from your mates. What a waste of fossil fuel (and time in our…

SAFARI SURFBOARDS STTF SHAPER: Spider Murphy DIMENSIONS: 5’8” X 19” X 2⅜” = 27.52L FIN SETUP: Thruster The Shaun Tomson Tri Fin has extra width and thickness in the nose area and a flat rocker giving her plenty of speed in and out of the barrel. Extra width and volume under the front foot, allowing you to get up on the nose without sliding and skipping in the tube. EMAIL: boards@safarisurf.com TEL: (+27) 31 337 4230 WEB: www.safarisurf.com ADDR: 6 Milne Street, Durban, South Africa, 4001 SAFARI SURFBOARDS 70’S FISH SHAPER: Spider Murphy DIMENSIONS: 6’0” X 21” X 2⅝” - 38.96L FIN SETUP: Twin or Quad A blast from the 70’s with a bull nose, full-plan shape, pronounced fish tail, turned down rails into the nose and hidden volume. This…

It is a well-researched topic; a quick Google search will bring up scores of papers with hard cold facts demonstrating the undeniable benefits of surfing as a means of therapy. It has fueled the creation of many organizations that use surf therapy as a way to provide physical and emotional relief – a relief that us surfers enjoy on a daily basis. Multiple South African Surfing Champion, Tasha Mentasti has been surfing for 25 years and is one of the many surfers who answered the call to share the stoke with others in need. “I have always wanted to put something back into the sport that has given me so much,” enthused Tasha. “So when I returned to South Africa at the end of 2008 I let the respective people…

SEA OF LOVE The editorial note from Zigzag 43.5 prompted my letter. Your West Coast bad taste experience is in contrast to our family’s celebration of the surfing community. On Mother‘s Day, my husband, daughter and friends were surfing Long Beach when my husband suffered a heart attack. Unconscious and at the risk of drowning, other surfers helped my daughter get him to shore. A committed community of people saved Craig’s life. We are eternally grateful. Ten weeks on, an emergency triple bypass surgery and oceans of kindness and blessings from all those who took part in this life changing event. Craig is now preparing himself to once again paddle out. We are reminded that the surfing community is the people we share life with, experiencing all the stoke and…

Weather means different things to different people, even amongst ocean users. Divers want low swell action and good visibility. Surfers want clean swell and offshore wind. Swimmers want warm water and no wind. Kite surfers want wind, and depending on skill level, lots of wind and swell. The source for ocean data is the ever reliable WW3, a computer modelling system in its third generation, hence the three. WW3 does not compute nearshore surf. That’s for us to extrapolate. The basic input for the supercomputer’s model is surface wind data provided by the Global Forecasting System (GFS) to calculate what swell will be created. Developed at the National Oceanic and Atomsopheric Association (NOAA) and National Centres for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) WW3 started out as the WAM wave model back in…

I got out of the water the other day at a secret break called Mouse Mountain. Its location is known to no more than five thousand surfers on the Cape Peninsula. On a good day, you can get it with fewer than three hundred out. If you know where the spot is, keep it to yourself. There were two hipsters sitting on the wall. They were dressed for decaf lattes, not surfing. As I walked past, I overheard the skinny dude with a sloppy top-knot say to his buddy, “I know lots of guys who used to surf but don’t any more.” I wanted to put my board down, grab Top-Knot by the throat and shout, “who are these gutless weasels? I want names!” I would hunt them down and…

The car slowed down to a crawl. Ahead, silhouetted by the headlights was a scene that no amount of prior research could have prepared me for. Lengths of rope tied together were held taught across the road while young men lingered in a combination of traditional dress and dusty football shirts. I didn’t have time to register what Premiership teams were most popular in this part of Liberia. My attention was fixed on the number of machetes caught in beam of our headlights. Tension in the car was palpable, made all the worse by the fact that there were 11 of us crammed into a 5-seater VW Golf. I kept my head down, this was not like the other official roadblocks. This roadblock looked to have been organised by one…

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How to kickstart your day in the best possible way? You could get off to worse starts than knifing a clean morning barrel at an uncrowded Eastern Cape slab. Spare a thought for the cubicle drones stuck in gridlock rush hour traffic inching their way closer to menial tasks as Deen Hill clocks in for an important meeting. Meanwhile far away from warm water and playful right handers, Fabian Campagnolo shows us how to dance into the sunset with a driving, low slung bottom turn at one of Cape Town’s most demanding lefts.…

THE FILM MAKERS “The actual lack of fucking application,” says South African-born filmmaker Michael Oblowitz, “is exactly why these South African filmmakers have no hope in fucking hell. Because you’re so insular. You need to get off your own asses and out of your own world and look at the world outside, you know? Seriously.” Strong words from an angry man with a “huge fucking beef with Zigzag” all the way from New York – and probably aimed more at this journalist than the people you will read about below. But still proof that success and acclaim does not always lead to magnanimity or wisdom. Because South African surf films and filmmakers have been making increasingly larger waves on the local and international scenes. The aforementioned Michael Oblowitz is most…

The problem with reality is that reality is real. It is not theory. It is not an algorithm or an equation. Reality is the real thing: fact in real time. The other day, at a fun if chunky 4-5’ point break on the Wild Coast, someone said: “I think I saw a large Zambezi shark pass beneath me.” The girth of its torso was apparently that of an oak wine barrel. The obligatory exodus followed, and we sat salty-eyed and sullen on the rocks watching the waves roll by. The surf wasn’t amazing. But when the 6-8ft swell arrived the next day (fresh from delivering an epic finals day at the Corona Open J-Bay), the conditions were in ungodly contrast. I should know. I watched it alone for an hour,…

PLASTIC POLLUTION If you surf, you’ll have noticed all the crap washing up on the beach, most of it plastic. And if you’ve been surfing for a long time, you’ll have noted that it’s getting worse, much worse. Surfers are on the frontline of the plastic pollution problem. It is, fundamentally, our issue. At the heart of this crisis, is the ‘design-flaw’ of single use plastic. Cheap, disposable packaging that serves a brief purpose and then remains in the environment for several thousand years. So while the race is on to find and implement bio-degradable alternatives and ban single use plastics, the big question remains what to do with all the plastic currently in the environment? Not to mention all the new plastic that will be produced until single use…

We open the Splab with the 54th edition of the SA Surfing Championship that went down at Nahoon Reef, East London recently. As far as Splab is concerned, SA Champs is the barometer for how healthy Mzansi’s surfing future is. Splab reckons it’s looking pretty damn good. Congratulations to Open Men’s Champ Joshe Faulkner and the everimpressive local Zoë Steyn who claimed back to back victories in the Open Women’s events in 2018 and 2019, all surfed in proper 4–5 foot Nahoon Reef waves. Nice. And what would SA’s be without someone throwing their toys and spitting the dummy. 2019 was Devyn Mattheys’ turn. He was so incensed at picking up an interference in the Over 35 Men’s Final, that he stormed off the beach. Qualifying as a double finalist…

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