Politics in New York City is a bare-knuckle affair. It was only natural then, when the Atlantic Sea Island Group (ASIG) proposed the construction of a 116 acre offshore Liquid Natural Gas facility off the coast of New York and New Jersey, that the Surfrider Foundation’s NYC chapter jumped into the ring, ready to throw down.

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The much-anticipated South Swell fills in and every ripper in Southern California clogs the lineup at Lowers. A few great waves from Taylor Knox, Coco Ho, Laura Enever, Jamie Parkhurst, and more make the highlight reel. Video by Jon Steele

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Ace Buchan tells us about his first venture in publishing: Macka’s Barrel Into the Dreamtime, launching April 30.

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Kolohe Andino, Travis Mellem, Patrick and Tanner Gudauskas and the T-Street pack go nuts in typical San Clemente surf.

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The East Coast has been on fire for nearly three weeks now, with the Outer Banks and New Jersey making cold water pits seem more and more appealing.

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By Jeff Mull

In the realm of surf films set to be released in the coming months (truth be told there are quite a few that have us salivating), Kai Neville’s Modern Collective is sure to whip some heads. Take one of the most progressive young filmmakers around, hone his skills alongside the Yoda of surf celluloid (Taylor Steele), and while you’re at it throw in six of the world’s most innovative surfers, and you’re bound for cinematic splendor the likes of a modern-day Momentum II. Recently, we tracked down the film’s director, Kai Neville, to chew the fat. Want to see the future of surf? Read on.

So there’s been a lot of hype leading up to the release of your new film, Modern Collective. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I’m 24 years old, grew up on the Sunshine Coast of Australia, and my old man got me into surfing at Noosa. They had a film class at high school and that’s when I discovered my love for the genre. Naturally I combined my froth for surfing and film by shooting the local Sunny Coast boys with my $500 Handycam.

We know you played a big role in the making of a lot of the recent Poor Specimen videos. (Stranger than Fiction, Days of the Strange, etc.) What’s it like now making your own film with complete creative control?
I’m really excited to be in the director’s chair, though it’s a lot more work than I expected. The movie isn’t going to make itself. In a directorial position you have to cover all of the aspects from pre- to post-production and then hand in a nicely crafted DVD to the distributor before the deadline. I’ve found myself spending hours on e-mail, organizing trips, researching…a lot of creative time is cut down. But it’s great to see your vision come to life though. And I’m learning new things every day.

Can you give us a rundown of what Modern Collective is all about and what the viewer can expect?
It’s basically a collective of six innovative surfers who seek to set in motion the expectations of surfing. We want to capture a level that will take the Hi-Fidelity surf genre into a new realm. It’s a voyage into the now, showcasing the journey to viewers along the way.

You’ve round up a list of some heavy-hitters in the film. Can you tell us who you’ve got in the lineup and how you picked them?
The film follows Jordy Smith, Dane Reynolds, Dusty Payne, Dion Agius, Yadin Nicol, and Mitch Coleborn. After working on Stranger Than Fiction, I wanted to work closer with a group who I think represent the future of surfing. These guys are all super consistent; you take them on one trip and it rains clips. Gone are the days of filming for a year in the same outfit for one section. They are all fun to travel with, too, and each give a fresh personality to the project.

Can you talk about what it’s like to be constantly on the run filming what is arguably the most talented lot of surfers today?
It’s wicked. This is the best project I have worked on by far. We have all become good friends and some of the funniest shit has been captured on video. Everyone is working hard to nail down some keepers—the boys might be a little over me by the end of production from constant heckling to film and working on shots they might think are gay. I’m sure when they see the final edit they will be stoked with what we have been working on, but it’s still early days.

Has there been a single session or trip during the making of the film that stands out in your mind?
Just last week we scored a session at a right point in West Oz; it was solid overhead, onshore, pissing down with rain, and 30-knot winds. Sounds rank, and it was terrible to film, but the level of surfing was a joke. The biggest onshore ramps I have ever seen! We captured some bangers and they almost landed some of the biggest moves I’ve filmed...you always get the best clips in the worst conditions these days.

It seems that there’s this fundamental shift in the way that surf movies are being made these days, with progressive filmmakers taking a more creative approach to the filming, editing, and soundtrack, giving the films a much more avant-garde feel. Is that something that you would agree with or had in mind while making Modern Collective?
You need to give an innovative approach to each film for sure. It pushes other filmmakers when the quality and creativity is consistently reaching a higher level. I love watching surf films that inspire me to work at doing something better. With equipment becoming more affordable, I think over the next few years there will be a crop of young filmmakers working on really cool projects—sticking it to the larger production companies. I’m trying to attack all the aspects in relation to Modern Collective for an avant-garde feel.

When the film is released later this year, will it be released in DVD format or available for download online?
Both, DVD still has some golden years…
 
As the final touches are put on the film and the last of the editing is done, is there a place that people can go to stay updated on Modern Collective?
Moderncollective.tv. Follow the voyage with us.

Once the film is released, will there be a tour schedule for the U.S.?
For sure! Come party…the booze is on Steelsy.

From San Diego to Salt Creek, Southern California enjoys a dose of sunny pre-summer surf.

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Simply Simpo: Episode 4, Training Day - Brett has been training with Ian Cairns over the past year and half. Here is a look into the types of things they work on and what they hope to achieve by doing this type of training.

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The night culminated in celebration of Greg Long’s $50,000 XXL Ride of the Year at Dungeons in South Africa, an especially impressive selection, as Long was the only paddle-in nominee.

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When legends like Tom Curren, Tim Curran and the band Switchfoot get together, you know something good is about to happen.

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Joel Parkinson claimed the 2009 Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach presented by Snickers, defeating fellow Finalist Adam Robertson trials winner and event wildcard, in pumping six-foot conditions at Bells Beach.

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A collection of classic images from one of SURFER'S most esteemed photographers: Ron Stoner.

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Final day highlights from the 2009 Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach. Watch Silvana Lima claim her first World Tour event over Steph Gilmore.

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By Jeff Mull

Although it may be considered a standard maneuver in modern surfing, having a solid backhand snap on lockdown is as important as anything you’ll achieve in the water. You can punt rotations all day long, but if your backhand snap is something more akin to a lover’s caress than a meaty gouge, you’ve got work to do, son. Luckily, we recently sat down with Ewa Beach’s Keanu Asing—a lad who recently won a gold medal at the ISA World Junior Games, thanks in large part to his hefty backside hack—to get the lowdown on tearing the lip a new one.

So you’re gonna give us the ins and outs on the backside snap. Sounds pretty standard to a lot of people, but there’s a lot more to it than most of us realize, right?
Well, first, this is definitely a really solid move that can be used in a lot of different ways. But what’s true for the backside snap is true of just about anything in surfing: It all starts with a solid bottom turn. If that’s soft and needs work, then the rest of your surfing will suffer for it.

Okay, so tell us about your bottom turn leading into a backside snap.
For me, I like to use a lot of my rail for my bottom turns. I also try and lower my body a lot to keep a real low center of gravity and use my legs like coils to sort of help me accelerate off the bottom. Once I’ve started my bottom turn and I’m eyeing the lip I want to crack, that’s where everything sort of starts in motion. It should be a really fluid thing.
 
So you want to start your bottom turn with a very low center of gravity and your knees really bent and then start eyeing the lip. What’s next?
The next thing you want to do is position your back foot as far back on the tail as you can going into your bottom turn. This gives you a lot more control over the board. When you’re driving down the line to get more speed, you want to have your back foot placed between the side fins, but when you want to do a turn, move your back foot to the end of the tail. So once you have your back foot on the tail and you’re eyeing the lip, you want to lead with your front arm to help keep your momentum and speed until you reach the lip.

As you approach the lip, what are you doing with the rest of your body?
This goes back to being coiled-up off your bottom turn. As you go into the turn, your body will sort of open up as you go into the lip. Once you start doing that and actually make contact with the lip, you want to get low again and start shifting your weight around from your back foot to your front foot. You should be able to sort of feel the wave beneath you as ride into it. Once you hit the lip, you just sort of rotate your body back down the face toward the beach. This is where you can start sliding your tail around and where having your foot on the very back of the board comes in handy.

So you’ve finished your top turn. What else goes into completing the rest of the move?
As you come back down the face, you want to stay real low and ride out the wave with your knees bent and body still coiled so you can go into your next turn, but that’s pretty much it. Just stay low, eye the lip, and lead with your front arm, and then you kind of just feel out the rest. It should feel really smooth once you start doing them a lot.

Photo highlights from Silvana Lima's win over Steph Gilmore at the 2009 Rip Curl Women's Pro at Bells Beach Australia.

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That was embarrassing, said Layne, chuckling, after drying off. That was not the way I wanted to go out at Bells Beach.'

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It’s not exactly America’s surfing epicenter, but the Gulf Coast occasionally snags solid swell and guys like Sterling Spencer relish the opportunity.

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Jason Starr’s been absent from the lineup at Creek for some time now. The reason for this is simple: He’s been busy making babies.

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Salt Creek Surfer, Jason Starr, To Exhibit His Babies

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Each spring as the birds begin to chirp a bit louder and the mustard plant blossoms along California hilltops, those of us in the Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards Academy are asked to vote for the most heroic big wave surfing exploits of the year via email.

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An unnamed Australian slab goes goliath and Chris Shannahan, Dean Harrington, Kerby Brown, Richie Vaculik, and a crew of Australian chargers charge it.

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The Quiksilver ISA World Junior Surfing Championship saw one of its most intense days at Playas de la FAE.

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I’m glad you asked, since the answer may shock you. SURFER annually compiles its list of the best young surfers on the planet yet the methodology for determining this roster has always been somewhat hazy. How do you weigh competitive success against freesurfing prowess and natural talent? Does the ability to punt huge airs outweigh style and technique? Does being incredibly good-looking help? The simple answer to these and other questions is: we don’t know.

The Hot 100 is in fact determined by a large, dusty machine with an Internet connection. The machine scans search engines, blogs, and social networking sites for YouTube videos, contest results, blog postings, and myriad other avenues where a surfer–age 20 or under on January 1, 2009–may have featured. Alongside the machine, red-eyed interns continuously feed pages of local and international surf magazines into a large, cumbersome flatbed scanner for the computer to digest and process. From here, advanced algorithms consolidate the information and analyze the data using complex mathematical equations and image recognition software. Then, sometime around mid-February, a document appears on the printer alongside the machine with 100 names printed in bold, block font. It’s the SURFER Hot 100 list, the definitive ranking of the best 100 surfers on the planet.
  
Amazing, isn’t it? Fantastical even? Unfortunately, it’s completely untrue.

The Hot 100 is judged and ranked like every other attempt to place a numerical value on something as subjective as riding a wave; it uses a loose set of guidelines and a lot of conflicting opinions to decide where each surfer is ranked. We consider things as cut and dry as competitive results and magazine and video coverage, to the more esoteric aspects of surfing such as: style, technique, maneuver repertoire, and natural talent. Then there are the other indefinable characteristics such “X-factor,” media hype, and Public Relations savvy–all of which are vital aspects of becoming a modern professional surfer.

Having spent the last few months engrossed in junior surfing, I’m overwhelmed at the amount of talent that exists. A few years ago, we struggled to fill the Hot 100, this year, we could easily have compiled the Hot 200 and still not have scratched the surface of the talent out there. Likewise, the girls and grom divisions have been extended from 15 surfers to 20, though this barely encapsulates the swelling talent pools. Having said that, finding your name on this list is a huge honor, and rest assured, every person here deserves to be recognized.

Of course, we don’t proclaim to know everything about every surfer out there, but there are a lot of resources that collectively do. While compiling this year’s list, we spoke to the people that see these surfers in action the most: industry types, team managers, photographers, videographers, contest directors and judges, magazine editors, photo editors, and, of course, the kids out there competing and surfing with each other on a day-to-day basis. We watched YouTube clips, we scanned profiles on SurferHot100.com, and we watched these guys surf whenever we got the chance to.

The Hot 100 is not only about what a surfer did in the past, it’s also an attempt to see into the future. An impossible task to be sure, but the list on the following pages is made up of surfers who, in our informed estimation, using all the evidence available to us, will have a huge impact on surfing for years to come. Sure, it’s junk-science, but it’s still science, so you know it’s good.   

Brendon Thomas
Managing Editor, SURFER

*Special thanks to everyone that contributed to compiling this list. especially Jeff Mull, Janna Irons, Grant Ellis, Alex Wilson, Joel Patterson, Chris Mauro, and Jake Howard for their untiring efforts.

Recession Causes Worldwide Slump In Shark Attacks

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