For me choosing my next surfboard normally starts with a dream. A day dream that is. I’ll be thinking about a specific riding style for a specific type of wave. My imagination will soon start to suggest to me surfboards in certain formats that will suit my purpose. It’s a live feed streaming in my head like a movie and I’m in it. There’s waves, with me riding them, I’m surfing a certain way. There’s the new board already under my feet looking the part and doing the bizo!
With summer approaching fast, also comes the promise of long, warm days with spare hours for riding waves, seemingly endless days of small swells pushing towards us off the back of slowly moving high pressure systems far out to sea. I have been surfing more this winter, I’m feeling fitter and more tuned, with a drop in board length a tempting reality, might as well strike while the iron is hot. It’s time for a new board!
There are a million options, yet I’m guided towards my new surfboard by the movie that’s playing on a short loop in my head. Always the same waves: small, softish, shapely and playful. There’s me, “S” turning all over them, speed on tap, flowing as I go, all the time adjusting to the needs of my board, shifting my back foot out to the rail and back again, running out over the flats, letting the board do the work before interjecting with back foot rail pressure, re-directing back and up into the pocket, tapping back into the energy source… over and over streaming the dream.
This story is from the Issue 188 edition of NZ SURFING MAGAZINE.
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This story is from the Issue 188 edition of NZ SURFING MAGAZINE.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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Trigger Finger
Ask any top surf coach and the two elements they will concentrate on and recommend are a solid bottom turn and being able to develop speed - as they say, speed is your friend, and many of the best surfers on the planet also happen to be the fastest surfers.
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Over 50 years ago surfing’s greatest ambassador of all time, the legendary Duke Kahanamoku, had a vision that one day surfing would become an Olympic sport.
The Gladiator Pit
Born from the era of the Roman Empire, armed combatants known as gladiators would enter the arena also known as the Gladiator Pit to face up against other gladiators, animals and criminals in fierce battle in what was seen as entertainment often ending in death to one or the other.
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There are those young athletes that get into sport who possess natural talent, even the X-factor, yet as the road is usually a far-too-easy passage, they either take it for granted or don’t push beyond their capabilities.
Licence To Score
The adventures behind the wheel of Mount Grom Luke Griffin.
Land Of The Long Lefts
It was the year 1966 and the sport of surfing was sweeping the world.
Theshapeshifter - Roger Hall
Ever heard of a Mini Simmons?
The Road Less Travelled
Take a look at a map of our coastline and you will see thousands of kilometres of coastline, 15,000 to be almost exact, making it the 9th longest in the world.
Then & Now
It was the early 80s and the world of sport was evolving rapidly.
