INSIDE THE ISSUE
ISSUE: NO. 607
Caity Simmers: Notes From The Ether – California’s Dual Threat – Ivan Florence: Till The Wheels Fall Off – Chippa Wilson: From Curb Surfer To Aerial Virtuoso – Shane Borland: Surf What’s In Front Of You – Jet Dehaan: Where The Concrete Meets The Sea – No Comply: Jake ‘Zeke’ Szekely – Cheyne Horan’s Career Sugar Hit – Wafa Heboul Is Doing It Her Way – Blurred Lines: A Skateboarding Photo Essay- Chumbo, Dylan & Fink: Full Power Down Under
CAITY SIMMERS: NOTES FROM THE ETHER
Seeking explanations for one surfer's other-worldly traits.
“I think expressing yourself creatively is the greatest power you can have. It’s pretty easy to see this with artists all over the world. Surfing is such a creative activity. It’s you and a wave and you can do whatever the hell you want on it. It gets complicated when you add a criteria, a time constraint, and the pressure to make money to survive. It gets complicated but it doesn’t make it impossible.” Caity Simmers
Written by Luke Kennedy
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA'S DUAL THREAT
A brief history of the symbiotic relationship between surf and skate in the Golden State.
The story of skateboarding, just like the story of surfing, is one of timing. This generation of baby boomers were born into a rapidly developing and economically prosperous Southern California that would embrace these nascent cultures as they developed. If there was an American dream, this was the budding Californian dream. And as surfing’s continued to unfold skateboarding’s would get put on a brief hold as everybody’s mother realised where all these cuts, bruises, and broken bones were coming from.”
Written by Taylor Damron
IVAN FLORENCE: TILL THE WHEELS FALL OFF
Or Zen and the art of transferrable learning between surf, skate and snow.
“It was like a little jungle dreamland,” Ivan says of Cholos. This sick skate spot that nobody was allowed to go, and just me and my brothers would be the only ones up there with a few other friends, and we’d just skate so much... “That's where we really got into skating.” Ivan Florence
Written by Luke Kennedy
CHIPPA WILSON - CURB SURFER TO AERIAL VIRTUOSO
How a skate-obsessed kid from Cabarita became one of surfing's most celebrated flyers.
Chippa Wilson readily admits he owes much of his aerial wizardry to a 50-yard stretch of bitumen out the front of his childhood home in Cabarita.
“We had these really cool, curbed gutters, and I used to barefoot surf-skate those fuckers from sun-up to dusk... I honestly just did little floaters and alley oops, shove-its and what not... Little lines that I have achieved later on in my life surfing.”
Written by Luke Kennedy
SURF WHAT'S IN FRONT OF YOU
How Shane Borland goes big in both worlds.
“When the waves are good, he surfs. When they aren’t, he skates. Simple, in theory but in practice, it leaves Shane with an extremely full dance card. It’s just what he does and has done since he was a child. And this devotion is not born of a conscious, performance-maximising desire to cross train, but out of a genuine love for the two practices. The spill- over effects are a happy, and welcome accident that provide colour to Shane’s approach and a contrast to the hyper focused, black and white, super-competitors that dominate much of surfing’s world.”
Written by Taylor Damron
WHERE CONCRETE MEETS THE SEA: JET DEHAAN
The gifted Cronulla rider is living a blissful, dual existence.
“After dropping out of school, travelling the world as a teenage skate prodigy, being unsuccessfully moulded into an Olympic athlete and receiving death threats for landing a trick, Jett Dehaan’s shoulders are surprisingly relaxed, free from the weight of expectation; he’s simply creating a double life where surfing and skateboarding co-exist and sponsors are happy to fund the ride.”
Written by Angus Piper
NO COMPLY: JACOB 'ZEKE' SZEKELY
Behind the polarising persona lies a troubled past, a skateboarding mindset and a wave pool obsession that have helped Jacob ‘Zeke’ Szekely carve out one of surfing's most unconventional careers.
“I was a convicted felon; I got sober and turned my life around. I rocked up to Waco with an ankle monitor on and went and landed some of the biggest tricks of my life and never looked back.” Jacob ‘Zeke’ Szekely
Written by Jake Stolte
CHEYNE HORAN AND THE CAREER SUGAR HIT
How concrete curves and Coca Cola credentials helped ‘The Bondi Kid’ on the world stage.
Before Cheyne Horan became the ‘Kid Dynamo’ of surfing’s nascent pro-tour, he was the Australian skateboarding champion and a star member of the Coca Cola skate team. Cheyne preferred to skate in bare feet, and tricks were more urban anarchy than boy band choreography. A favourite bit of improvised fun for Cheyne and his four-wheeled gang was to find an abandoned car and make board straps out of the seatbelts.
Written by Luke Kennedy
WAFA HEBOUL IS DOING IT HER WAY
The determined Moroccan woman who has cultivated a dynamic lifestyle around surf and skate.
Wafa Heboul refuses to fit into your box. A Moroccan skater, surfer, and entrepreneur, Wafa has grown up going against the grain. Her experience learning to skate as the only girl at her local skate park 20 years ago made her comfortable rebelling against norms and choosing the path less traveled.
Written by Maddy Bolt
CHUMBO, DYLAN AND FINK - FULL POWER DOWN UNDER
The maestro of Nazare and his skim-boarding accomplice roar through Australia, with a little help from their friends.
"It was a real freight train, wally, barrelling, unpredictable left … It was moving so fast, but he was playing with it. He was back-dooring sections and coming out, doing a snap in the pocket, getting another barrel and then trying a big air. It was this high-performance mix between snowboarding and surfing.”
Written by Luke Kennedy
Still HERE, MATE.
The indomitable spirit of Shane Stedman.
By the time we met, Shane had already lived what seemed like a lifetime of experience, from growing up as Tony, mostly at Crescent Head, a barefoot bush kid who learned an abiding respect for First Nations culture through his schoolmates, and first felt the lure of the surf, to studying engineering by day while changing his name to Shane and becoming a rock star by night (Shane and the Trojans), going into surfboard production in a rented shed at Eastwood in Sydney’s west, to finally making the move to Surfboard Central in Brookvale in the late ‘60s.
Written by Phil Jarratt
THE DEATH OF SURPRISE
How technology has re-shaped the surfing experience.
“Analogous to many things in life, as well as in surfing, technology can dull the edges, yet we seem hellbent on prioritising convenience at the expense of almost everything else (as the Dead Kennedys famously put it,“Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death”).”