Jake Stolte
Harry Bryant’s Cornwall adventure fueled by mussels and beer
The goofy-foot Australian scored one of Cornwall’s best waves on a trip to the UK last year.
Greater legal protection needed for surf breaks in Australia
A study estimates that surfing injects almost $3 billion AUD into the national economy each year.
THE UNICORN – ISSUE 599
Chasing a wave worth losing your job over.
I’m motioning through mid-week-monotony when I receive a call from Darcy Ward, asking about the chances of me getting a few days off work for a strike mission.
Darcy is the man behind the video lens, a prolific chronicler of all-things surfing over the last decade and currently the creative/marketing director of Vissla Australia.
As I’m amidst a busy summer holidays’ lifeguarding season, I answer with an initial, ‘No chance!’ I hang up the phone and then Darcy texts through a photo of the swell chart with a message: “It’s looking like eight-10-foot for two days with pretty much no wind”. My heart drops. I’ll be absolutely devastated if I miss this. Toby Mossop and Darcy are going with or without me and the FOMO will be unbearable. It seems an opportunity worth losing my job over.
I nervously call the boss and plead my case. “Leave it with me”, he answers. A few nail-biting hours later, he calls me back and lets me know he’s updated my roster. Four days off! We’re on. I let the boys know I’m in and the flights are booked.
Perched roadside atop my board bag in the darkness before dawn, I eagerly wait for the boys (Darcy Ward & Toby Mossop) to pick me up. This wave is the Unicorn we’ve had on our radar for the last eight years. There is no chance I’m going to miss this flight.
Louie Hynd locked in.
An hour goes by watching dishevelled humans stagger out of taxis after a night on the town. I anxiously make a call to Darcy assuming he’s slept through his alarm. No answer, then a text pings back, “Mate we leave 2:30PM, not 2:30AM”.
‘’Shit!” At least this is the earliest I’ve ever been packed and ready for a trip. I …
The hollow – issue 599
A spooky offshore reef where no one can hear you scream.
Whenever thick lumps of swell heave over this outer reef, a cast of wily regulars are at the ready.
Over the years, the local specialists have become more brazen in their pursuit of the fat-lipped, muscular pits the spot is renowned for. Or as photographer Dean Wilmot put it, “The local boys charge hard”.
Although Dean spent more than a decade earning a rep as one of the best lensman at Pipe and Backdoor, he’d never shot out here before. Recently reacquainted with his camera rig, after an extended hiatus, once he’d heard about this wave, he had to experience it for himself. When the charts revealed a promising east coast swell coinciding with winds flickering auspiciously west, Deano bolted south, equipped with little more than a couple of phone contacts and vague directions about how to get to the reef.
Photogs typically hitch a ride on a ski to get out here, however by the time Dean found the boat-ramp, almost all the ski teams had been launched. One driver promised to come back and pick him up but never returned. In the end his only option was to make the long, lonely swim across a sharky ditch to the offshore reef. Out in the water, a helmeted Deano figured out his markers and marvelled at the bold antics of the surfers. Deano flippered hard to stay in the zone, struggling to contain his excitement as he took aim with his camera. However, after a while his legs became so cramped up they felt like concrete pylons attached to his torso. He was a long way out without anyone really watching his back.
Noa Deane wrestling with an unfriendly foam ball. Photo: Sam Venn.
Fortunately, he secured a ride in with Josh Gallagher who put him on a sled …
STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS – ISSUE 599
Waves, pop culture, and the mainstream collide in this provocative take on Australian Surfing History.
Part 1:
God, War, Rebellion, Popular Culture, and Surfing
1914 – 1964
It was not surprising that upon returning to Australia, many veterans of WW1 became Surf Club members. The protection of swimmers at the beach was taken very seriously and the surf clubs were highly regimented. Although these men initially rejected the early surfers’ 14 to 16-foot, hollow, toothpick surfboards, they eventually embraced them, using them for paddling races rather than riding waves. They thought of the surfers as different to them, more interested in having fun than saving lives.
In pictures from this period the surfboard riders look like they are mimicking the pose of an athletics trophy; standing bolt upright with their feet glued to the deck of their surfboards. It must have been hard to balance without a fin to stabilise the board but perhaps that was half the fun. Standing with a straight back while appearing unperturbed as your surfboard goes sideways seems analogous to the societal shift about to take place.
Peace had swept through the European and Pacific theatres of war at the conclusion of WWII in 1945. But not everybody in the West returned home and went back to work. Small segments of the population, primarily men, withdrew from society and went their own way. Many of these men were veterans who had seen how despicably humans could behave toward one another and they wanted as little as possible to do with “civilisation”. Some gave up believing in both God and their government. As A B. Facey concluded in his autobiography A Fortunate Life (1981): “It was hard for me to believe there was a God after all of the killing I had seen in Gallipoli… and don’t any of you go taking any notice of the Government’s promises. They will tell …
Sophie McCulloch: take nothing for granted – issue 599
Sophie McCulloch shines light on the rehab rollercoaster she has ridden since qualifying for the Championship Tour.
Sophie McCulloch’s climb into the elite ranks of competitive surfing has had more ups and downs than a North Shore swell chart.
After reaching the dizzying heights of qualifying for the Championship Tour (CT) at the end of 2022, she plummeted almost immediately through the lows of two career-threatening injuries. The most recent one – a fractured vertebrae in a heavy wipeout at notorious West Australian wave The Box in May – was life-threatening.
All of this in her first two years on tour.
“I’ve realised that I’m not invincible. But I keep getting injured and I keep being stronger for it,” the Sunshine Coast surfer tells Tracks.
Sophie has never been more determined to get back on a surfing high. Photo: Ryan Miller.
Blistering start to devastating setbacks
Sophie, 26, is the first to admit she’s a fiercely determined competitor. She announced that much to the world in December 2022, when she fought through virtually impossible circumstances to qualify for the CT.
The five-foot-three pocket rocket had been coached by former pro, Grant Thomas, since she was a kid. She spent six years competing on the gruelling Qualifying Series and Challenger Series, honing a raw, powerful style and learning to send buckets of spray you’d expect from taller or heavier athletes. In 2022, she attacked Haleiwa’s shifty walls with gusto and emerged from deep in the rankings of the Challenger Series at the last event in December. She had to beat an impressive field, including five-time World Champion, Carissa Moore, to take the crown. Nothing but a win would have been enough to qualify for the CT for her first time.
Undeterred by the weight of the occasion, Sophie knew the mission and executed. The beach erupted as she was chaired up the beach with best friend India Robinson …
BEHIND THE LENS WITH VANESSA BROWN – ISSUE 599
Vanessa is the winner of the best photographer award at the recent,
‘Seas the Day’ surf festival, at Kingscliff.
Vanessa Brown was once a microbiologist working in a Sydney medical lab. However, when three kids came along the family moved up the coast and she wanted a career more compatible with her new life. Vanessa picked up a camera and was immediately drawn to portraiture, but she was never interested in artificial lighting and white backdrops she explains over the phone. “I don’t do any studio work. I hate using a flash,” she insists. “I like the connections that people have, I love doing families. I love natural light.”
Taken by Vanessa’s authentic approach, families were soon getting in touch for portraits. Eventually she was busy enough to shut down her website and rely on word of mouth referrals.
Meanwhile, the kids were increasingly falling under surfing’s spell and were lucky enough to have their own private photographer to document their salty escapades. “It evolved into surf photography, because my whole family is obsessed with surfing,” explains Vanessa. “All three of our kids and my husband are avid surfers, I’ve had a lot of practice photographing them in and out of the water.”
Around eight years ago, Vanessa became intrigued by drone photography. “I feel like everything looks amazing from the air… it just felt like every photo you took had such a unique perspective … I just fell in love with it.”
After experimenting extensively with the god’s eye angle, Vanessa started to set herself bolder challenges. “I’d take it out on a kayak, or launch it off boats… once you’re more confident flying, you’re willing to try and risk bigger and bigger things.” When asked if she thrives on positioning the drone as close to the wave as possible, Vanessa’s voice grows excited. “Oh, yeah, I do actually. Much to my kids’ horror at times. They’re like, …
LIGHTBOX – ISSUE 599
SURFER: JAI GLINDEMAN PHOTO & WORDS: BEN BUGDEN Straight south swells are normally a bit of a write-off on this east coast stretch, and at most nearby spots on this day the rule applied. However, an auspicious slab of sand had settled on a mostly dormant part of the coastline ensuring the south swell zippered along the bank at breakneck speed in front of intimidating cliffs, the shallowness of the bank amplifying the consequences of any mistake. There was a diverse cast of characters out there. A few crew braved the paddle, but without a bit of length to battle the current and get in early, and a ski to tow you back out of trouble if you came to grief in front of the cliffs, it was something of a fool’s errand. There is always an exception though, and most often around here, that exception is Rasta. He managed some beautiful rides on his 7’2” Gary McNeill ‘Pip’, and his positioning without the utilisation of a ski was sublime as always. Perhaps the wildest moment of the day saw a father/son team enter the lineup in a tinnie and proceed to whip into some of the best waves of the day. The duo consisted of Solly Lewis and his father. Towing into bombs with a tinnie is impressive enough, but just making it out through the treacherous boat channel, on the beach at Lennox, was arguably a greater achievement in itself. This shot features Jai Glindeman,(another standout of the session) as he navigates a dredging sand chamber along the base of the cliffs. SURFER: EDEN HASSONPHOTO: BOSKO Sometimes backdrops make the moment. Swaying coconut palms, sheer limestone cliffs or gritty streetscapes regularly play a role in the surf photog’s quest for juxtaposition. In this case it’s the jetty at Catherine Hill Bay that delivers the necessary contrast, whilst carrying the echoes of the town’s industrial past. The 240-metre long pier served as a coal loader to ships for over a century, but it wasn’t always smooth sailing. In 1917 the resident miners went on strike in support of rail workers. When the NSW government employed strike-breaking labour, the miners responded by derailing a train and dynamiting the pier in protest. These days the jetty is still a setting for explosive demonstrations, albeit of the surfing kind. Pictured here is Eden Hasson, mining the skies on a winter’s day. … Read more
SURFER: JAI GLINDEMAN
PHOTO & WORDS: BEN BUGDEN
Straight south swells are normally a bit of a write-off on this east coast stretch, and at most nearby spots on this day the rule applied. However, an auspicious slab of sand had settled on a mostly dormant part of the coastline ensuring the south swell zippered along the bank at breakneck speed in front of intimidating cliffs, the shallowness of the bank amplifying the consequences of any mistake. There was a diverse cast of characters out there. A few crew braved the paddle, but without a bit of length to battle the current and get in early, and a ski to tow you back out of trouble if you came to grief in front of the cliffs, it was something of a fool’s errand. There is always an exception though, and most often around here, that exception is Rasta. He managed some beautiful rides on his 7’2” Gary McNeill ‘Pip’, and his positioning without the utilisation of a ski was sublime as always. Perhaps the wildest moment of the day saw a father/son team enter the lineup in a tinnie and proceed to whip into some of the best waves of the day. The duo consisted of Solly Lewis and his father. Towing into bombs with a tinnie is impressive enough, but just making it out through the treacherous boat channel, on the beach at Lennox, was arguably a greater achievement in itself. This shot features Jai Glindeman,(another standout of the session) as he navigates a dredging sand chamber along the base of the cliffs.
SURFER: EDEN HASSON
PHOTO: BOSKO
Sometimes backdrops make the moment. Swaying coconut palms, sheer limestone cliffs or gritty streetscapes regularly play a role in the surf photog’s quest for juxtaposition. In this case it’s the …