The Weekly Bugle:
Into The Weeds Of The World’s Surfing Week
Green flashes, the King’s a cnut, Torren being Torren, Wavegarden innovation and high end dining, the art of the surf mat and dogs shitting in beautiful places.
The Surf Mat Guru
This week I spoke to the world’s premier surf mat builder Graeme Webster of G-Mat Custom Surfmats. His custom mat pictured above for Bryce Young ("it’s more like tailoring a suit than building a surf craft") caught my eye. However his decade-long design quest for the perfect mat, now ridden uninflated, and the whole surf mat culture and tribe was fascinating. A piece is coming out next week and once the embargo is lifted I’ll put the full audio up. Meanwhile here is Andrew Buck flying on a G-Mat.
The Green Flash
A couple of weeks ago whilst having a beer and watching a rare sunset in Portugal, I tried to explain why the green flash can appear to my mate’s 17-year-old son. Clearly undergunned in the knowledge department, I settled on “It’s all about the science, mate.” Lucky for him, and me, the always excellent Kevin Okun in his Science of Surfing substack explains the phenomenon perfectly, and in surfing terms. Can’t wait to explain my new knowledge to some poor bastard at the next sunset.
The King’s Reach
Led by Donkeys' tagline is Art, Activism and Accountability, and few do it better. One of the most recent campaigns was calling out the King of England’s vast income streams, and the charities he syphons money from. That the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institute), effectively the lifeguards at all UK beaches is a charity is mad enough, but that the single biggest landholder with an estimated value of £16billion is charging them for rent is scandalous. As Led by Donkeys cleverly illustrates above.
68 Seconds of Torren Martyn
You’ve probably seen this clip, but that’s the beauty of it; it’s endlessly watchable. As the saying goes; if you are tired of Torren Martyn surfing, you are tired of life.
The Wavegarden Lab
I chatted to Wavegarden Founder Jose Odriozola about the revamped Wavegarden Lab. The prototype pool has been upgraded with bigger waves, heavier tubes, multiple air sections and waves now being released individually every 15 seconds, rather than clustered in sets every 7 seconds. And a few months ago a slew of pros headed by Kelly Slater and including Kai Lenny, Coco Ho, Leo Fioravanti and Victor Bernado went ham. It’s a pretty good snapshot of where the intersection of artificial wave generation and high-performance surfing is right now. I wrote a piece in Surfer that covered the session, though the clip above sums it up.
An Elevated Dining Experience
Of course on the flip side of the high-performance artificial wave coin, is this; an elevated dining experience. Is this the logical extension of what happens when you commodify surfing and ensure only the wealthy can afford to surf it? Calamari does look good though...
Christmas Gift Guide
Are you struggling to buy a gift for the person who has absolutely nothing? This caught my eye and makes for the ultimate stocking filler.