Table of contents for 42.2 in Zigzag

It was only later in life that I learned to swim. A traumatic experience involving an inflated papsak and the bottom of the pool when I was a toddler left me fearful of dunking my head underwater for years. I still remember staring up at the rippling sun from the deep end of my gran’s pool. So while my friends had become competent swimmers by the time we started school, I competed in the novelty race at the annual gala. They were doing two full lengths of the pool, while I bounced across the breadth of the shallow-end to eat a Marie biscuit on the other side. Eventually I learned how to go under without holding my nose, and it wasn’t long after that I started to surf. My leash…

POINTS OF DIFFERENCE Since the birth of professional surfing, pros from all corners of the globe have descended on Oahu’s famous North Shore to either challenge for the world title (if they haven’t wrapped it up yet), the Triple Crown, or qualify for a spot on the following season’s Dream Tour. Many don’t even go to chase points, instead looking to score the wave of the winter and get their name up in lights. And while some of the locals may not welcome them with open arms, for the most part they’re accepted into the fold. Like many South Africans before him, Davey van Zyl has shown an affinity with the powerful, warping bowls at Sunset Beach, and this past season turned some heads and impressed local and visiting surfers…

DEVELOPMENT IS OFTEN SEEN AS THE BIGGEST THREAT TO THE WORLD’S SURF SPOTS, BUT A QUICK HEADCOUNT SUGGESTS HUMAN MEDDLING HAS CREATED MORE WAVES THAN IT HAS DESTROYED. BUT FOR HOW LONG? KRUGER’S DESIGN, NAMED THE DOLOS, WOULD BE REPLICATED AROUND THE WORLD IN VARIOUS FORMS AND TODAY YOU CAN FIND DOLOSSE EVERYWHERE FROM RICHARDS BAY TO COSTA RICA. IN 1963 IN A SMALL COASTAL TOWN IN SOUTH AFRICA, A 28-YEAR OLD HARBOUR EMPLOYEE BY THE NAME OF AUBREY KRUGER CAME UP WITH THE ULTIMATE TOOL FOR CREATING ARTIFICIAL WAVES. Kruger didn’t surf. Instead, he was a draughtsman at the port of East London, tasked with designing a more efficient structure that would be able to withstand the heavy swells that routinely battered the harbour breakwater. Puzzling over the idea…

“A lot of those people played a big role in his life. Crazy ad people. He learnt from a very early age to live his life differently.”- Isaac February Just a few years back we were standing in the Country Feeling shop in J-Bay amongst the Firewires, chewing the fat with Michael Ginsberg and invariably lamenting the dearth of South African talent at the higher reaches of the sport. Apart from Jordy, who else was going to make the quantum leap from our SA Champs and Billabong Junior Series to the rarified atmosphere of the then WCT? Pickings were slim, hope fading. Was this the end of the golden era of South African surfing? So we sought the wizened counsel of the former pro, World Tour judge and life-long frother,…

IS SOUTH AFRICAN BIG WAVE SURFING THE GIFTED UNDERACHIEVER OF OUR SURFING PARADIGM? THE SAFFA CONTINGENT OF BIG WAVE SURFERS HAS BEEN WAYLAID, AND IT SEEMS AS IF THEY AREN'T REALLY TOO FUSSED ABOUNT IT. THEY HAVE THEIR BIG WAVE SPOTS, AND ENOUGH SESSIONS IN A YEAR TO KEEP THE SPIRIT OF BIG WAVE SURFING Surfers in South Africa have had a serious problem throughout the years, across all genres of the sport. Whether it be competitive zealots, big wave aficionados, hipster cruisers or tube pigs. The compounding issue is thus: generally, our waves are so good that it’s difficult for our surfers to leave home. Being a QS hopeful means migrating your home break of consistent good waves, established hierarchy, and easy access to high wave counts as a…

CORTES BANK NORTH PACIFIC 150 kms OFFSHORE Sitting out in the middle of the ocean 150 kms from the nearest land mass, trying to get my bearings on a shifty, unpredictable line-up not unlike Dungeons at home, my thoughts drift to how we managed to pull this whole thing together. Just 36 hours earlier I’d been halfway up the 5 Highway on my way to Mavericks. A mission to Cortes is all about preparation. Preparation for every eventuality; which we learned the hard way a few years previously when Greg went down on a wave and never came back up. A three wave hold-down left him floating, unconscious, until a rescue ski managed to pull him to safety and he was resuscitated back to life. Nowadays we insist on at…

It was irony and ignorance that killed one of the best waves in the world. The iconic Paterson Groynes were completed in 1956 to help curb erosion along the Durban beachfront, inadvertently creating one of the world’s finest sand-bottomed waves. 25 years later, they were accused of causing this same erosion by city officials, and a few years later they were gone. While it’s true that the rips created by the piers accelerated erosion on the downdrift side of the groynes, this had always been the case and the dynamic had not changed in the 30 odd years of their existence. What had changed, however, was the extension of the north and south pier at the entrance of the Durban harbour, along with a greater buildup of sand at the…

The first time I ever saw someone tweaking-out a frontside slob, was in Dane Reynolds’ Excerpt. About a year after it was released, I was on a trip with Noa Deane at Lakey Peak. It was about head-high and howling cross-shore everyday; perfect for trying airs. During our first session, I noticed Noa doing the biggest frontside slobs. He was hitting the thickest sections, launching ridiculously high, and tweaking-out his slobs exactly the same way that Dane had in Excerpt. Since that trip, and watching Noa’s other clips during his astronomical rise to fame, I’ve tried tirelessly to emulate what he and Dane pioneered. FIVE STEPS TO TWEAKING OUT: • The most important part of executing a tweaked-out slob, is selecting the right section – usually a close-out section –…

A few months before the birth of our first child, I was down at Kommetjie contemplating a crew of groms shredding tiny Long Beach. Also watching was a woman – who had surf mom written all over her – with a younger kid, maybe three or four. He had long, bleached white hair and was all over the railing, climbing, jumping and generally running about being a rad kid. How cool would it be to have one of those, I remember thinking. Like all prospective parents, I too had uttered the silent parent’s mantra of ‘five fingers and toes’. But, I also secretly petitioned the god of unborn little people that if there was a tiny space still free on my wish list, could my child maybe grow up to…

Funny business, surfing. For a start it’s the only sport that comes with the risk of being torn apart by a wild animal. I’m talking about J-Bay locals, obviously, although sharks can also pose a threat to anyone who strays into unfamiliar waters. It’s also the only sport where everyone – young and old, experts and novices – can be found mingling freely on the playing field while competing for the same thing. It’s completely mad. It’s like you and your drunk mates wandering onto a soccer pitch and playing one bounce while Ronaldo, Messi and Neymar are training. People with a better education than mine might describe it as an egalitarian sport. Egalitarian does not mean kiff or even lakka. It has something to do with all people deserving…