Table of contents for November/ December 2016 (40.8) in Zigzag

The only time I’ve managed to catch a decent set wave at Supers was in the dark. To be honest, the sun was peeping over the horizon but it was early. I’d already had one cooking ride before another surfer paddled out to join me, and his first wave was a bomb too. It’s hard not to smile when you’ve just ridden a J-Bay leg-burner, but I was surprised by the broadness of the grin on the face of the other surfer as he paddled back out after his wave. A smile that wide wasn’t only because he’d just ridden a screamer; it’s also because that’s just the type of guy Phil is, a salt of the earth ripper just stoked on surfing. We got talking while waiting for the…

Donkey Bay in Namibia may be a desert, seemingly flat and devoid of life, but look closer and you will see this is far from the case. The entire coastline is home to an interconnected web of intricate ecosystems and considered an eco-tourism treasure, not to mention its world-class waves. But the actions of some surfers might see it closed off to the rest of the surfing public. That’s right, no more access to one of the world’s best waves. According to a source who wished to remain anonymous, car rental companies are considering putting a moratorium out on renting cars to surfers. This comes after numerous incidents in which vehicles are being driven into the water by visiting surfers and returned with salt in the engines, screwed-up brake disks…

Is summer here yet? I can’t be sure. It’s warm in Durban, tepid in Port Elizabeth and cold in Cape Town. I don’t know what’s happening in the rest of the country. Quite frankly, I care even less. Anywhere that doesn’t have a coastline is useless to me. I spent a couple of weeks in the Cape Peninsula’s wild and woolly Deep South in late September and while the days were tolerable, the moment the sun set, temperatures plummeted to bipolar levels. Durban had once again deceived me into thinking summer had arrived in South Africa, so I boarded the plane in baggies and slops. By the time I finally reached Kommetjie, my knees had seized up and seven of my toes had developed frostbite and fallen off. I got…

THE INDO FASHION PYRAMID The crowded Indonesian lineup is the perfect setting to observe the latest in surfing fashion trends. The coolest of the cool is the shirtless, deeply-tanned dude with sun-bleached hair and a beard (or no beard, because beards are now in with hipsters). He doesn’t need booties as his feet are calloused into hard leather from months of skipping over coral reef. Next in line are the T-shirt-wearing cool cats. This has been all the rage the past few seasons and goes well with shorter (about half an inch above the knee) slim-fit boardshorts. This group includes a wide spectrum of surfers; from clueless kooks to young inside-paddling gremlins who must surely be on speed to paddle around so much, like a fly buzzing around your head.…

How did Xhosa laaities playing with ox knucklebones give rise to a coupla ous from Slummies creating some of the best harbour-wall surf breaks around the world? Rewind to East London, 1963. A big storm klapped the port, tearing off more than half of the big concrete blocks lining the harbour wall. Eric Merrifield, the harbour engineer at the time, reckoned there had to be a better way to protect the port and dissipate the energy of the breaking waves. He enlisted his draughtsman, Aubrey Krüger, to come up with some ideas. The story goes that Kruger went home and sawed his mom’s broom into three pieces, in a shape based on the dubbeltjie thorn. Basically like an “H” with one leg turned through 90 degrees. The dolos was born.…

CLAYTON SURFBOARDS GENGHIS SHAPER: Clayton Nienaber DIMENSIONS: 5’9” x 19” x 21/4” - 25L FIN SETUP: Thruster This model is available for test ride. E-MAIL: cindy@claytonsurf.co.za doug@claytonsurf.co.za TEL: (+27) 31 368 4825 WEB: www.claytonsurfboards.co.za ADDR: 44 Milne street, Durban Central, 4001 CLAYTON SURFBOARDS ROX SHAPER: Clayton Nienaber DIMENSIONS: 5’10” x 191/4 x 2 3/8” - 27,5L FIN SETUP: Thruster This model is available for test ride. E-MAIL: cindy@claytonsurf.co.za doug@claytonsurf.co.za TEL: (+27) 31 368 4825 WEB: www.claytonsurfboards.co.za ADDR: 44 Milne street, Durban Central, 4001 SPIDER CLASSIC NOSE RIDER SHAPER: Spider Murphy DIMENSIONS: 9’0 to 10’0 FIN SETUP: Thruster Designed for riding the nose and gliding in small, flat conditions, this board can turn on a dime and is the ultimate small to medium surf nose rider. It features a flat rocker,…

After growing up in landlocked Jozi, Nic Bothma fell in love with surfing while doing his national service in the navy in Cape Town. Around the same time he picked up a camera and began to document his newfound passion. This led to an enduring partnership with Cass Collier and Ian Armstrong, who would go on to revolutionise the South African big wave scene. But with the imminent fall of apartheid and a country on fire, it wasn’t long before Nic gravitated towards the flames. After becoming the West Africa Chief Photographer for the European Pressphoto Agency in 2003, Nic’s camera has taken him to the frontlines of Sudan, the DRC, Palestine, Liberia and countless other conflict zones where he documents war, peace, and the occasional wave. What inspired you…

One of the magical things about surfing is its variety. From one-foot to thirty-plus, left or right, the choice is yours. When you factor in the variety of equipment we can ride those waves on, then the options become endless: a log for the flat days, a gun for the big stuff, a fish for fun, a soft-top for those shorebreak sessions, and your trusty 6’0” for just about everything else. No two waves are the same either, so even on those cranking days there are a number of different ways you can approach each ride – either taking it slow and staying tight in the pocket, or gunning full-speed ahead and searching for your launchpad. Handstands, headdips, coffin-rides and crazy carves are all there in our bag of tricks,…

I only started doing laybacks about five years ago. Before that I thought they weren’t highperformance, but then started asking myself how I could add something more to my surfing and began including them in my repertoire. This day the waves were small, so Josh Kerr and I were doing step-offs at North Stradbroke in Australia. Corey didn’t get any more frames in this sequence but I rode this one out. The key is to push hard all the way and to hopefully get that rail to bite. If you only go 50, 60 or 70% then you won’t have enough momentum from your body to go through the turn. If I go 100% then most of the time I make it. It all comes down to the section really.…

Broken boards and ankles, stuffed-up knees, twisted ligaments, two wave-hold downs, a fin chop to the throat… the risks of going big can be costly. But if you’re not content to glide on soft shoulders for the rest of your surfing days and want to take-off deeper or launch higher, then you’re going to be paying in blood and bruises from time to time. It’s the price of admission for a good performance. What follows are a collection of the best hit and miss moments from the Zag files. For a young pro with lofty ambitions, massive airs like this aren’t only for pleasure, they’re the reason you get invited on big international trips. But with the rewards come risk. “Big airs are scary because you can put yourself in…

“I don’t like tennis,” Bobby Martinez infamously said in 2011, before quitting the Dream Tour. That’s because surfing is nothing like tennis; running; golf; rugby, or most other sports. You’re not going to rock-up on the courts one day and whip Djokovic or Kerber in three sets, or hand-off the Beast to score the winning try. Neither could you lace up your spikes and outrun 400m Olympic gold medallist Wayde van Niekerk, even with a 100 metre head start. But surfing is different. Yes, it’ll take some skill on your part to make that tube and not spin-out mid-turn, but add some patience along with a bit of luck and anyone can catch the wave of the day. Point in case: There was a stellar cast out during this session…