The man comes with a pedigree. Hailing from New Pier in Durban from a talented surfing family, Travis’ talent shone through from an early age and it didn't take him long to venture into the world of pro surfing.
Once he had qualified, he hung around on the Championship Tour for ten full years, and his career had many highlights before and during that tenure, including one of ‘spoiler’ as he had a tendency to mess with world title runs.
“I still think that one of the biggest moments of my career was winning the World Games at my home beach in front of my whole country,” reckoned Travis of the 2002 ISA World Games held at North Beach in Durban. “It was huge for South Africa, and it was a huge result for me.”
Travis then climbed onto the Championship Tour by winning the 6-Star Rip Curl Pro Hossegor in 2004, and stayed there until his emo retirement at the end of 2014.
Early 2015 in a surprise announcement, Travis was brought back into the fold as the Commissioner for the WQS and for the Junior Series. It made sense and it was a perfect fit.
Travis has good intuition and a steely nerve, both being imperative when making the big calls on whether to send the surfers out or not. He ran this year’s Billabong Pro Cascais without a single fumble, as well as the Meo Rip Curl Pro Portugal. He is not shy to send the boys home for the day, but he’s also not shy to get going at first light and run to light failing, into the early evening.
When the championship tour needs an acting Commissioner, then Travis boldly steps into Kieren’s shoes and it’s as if nothing changes.
“The hardest thing about my job is obviously making the call,” said Travis. “We do make educated guesses these days, with so much information at our fingertips, but it’s still stressful, and you do make mistakes.”
Travis had a great reputation for ripping when the waves are small, but when the sets come through at any of the big destinations around the world, he was never scared to go for the big one. Whether Pipe or Chopes or Cloudbreak, Travis was always there, scrambling for the sets, doing what needed to be done to win heats.
One of his biggest heats involved a weird situation against fellow South African Jordy Smith in 2011 at Teahupo’o. It started off with Jordy pulling into a beast of a wave and getting obliterated. He was obviously injured and as he was dragged onto the back of a ski in agony, the contest organizer called the contest on hold, as there wasn't an ambulance available, much to Logie’s chagrin. Usually if there is an injury and a surfer is removed, the heat still runs to completion regardless.
After this break, the surfers were sent out again, and Jordy surfed to victory while very unhappily holding onto his cracked ribs.
Then there was a bit of a two-and-fro, some serious rule book discussions and pondering, and the two friends eventually were sent out to duke it out in a re-surf the next competition day. Travis took this win and advanced, made it all the way to the semis, and requalified as a result.
DepCom 1 has a long career ahead of him with the World Surf League, and with him on the ground we can always rest assured that things are going to run as smooth as.
Travis Logie retirement send off – By Steven Michelsen from steven michelsen on Vimeo.
