Otter Surfboards – A Film
A film about the love of craft and the ocean …

Help fund this fine-looking film about James Otter wooden surfboard craftsman extraordinaire.

Here’s the link, go check it out and drop a few coins: http://crowdfunder.co.uk/otter-surfboards-film/

This film will showcase the craftmanship and beauty of the surfboards shaped by James Otter, whilst inspiring young people to become involved in a craft like woodworking and the potential of starting their own business.
The film will also raise awareness of the negative environmental impact surfing can have locally and globally whilst highlighting the sustainability of the Otter process in contrast to large corporation production lines.
Using surfing throughout to capture imaginations and showcase Cornwall’s own beauty as a surfing destination, the film will be an emotive patchwork of motion picture and music. Our teaser video should help show you what we mean.
A Bit about Otter.
Otter make hollow, skin and frame wooden surfboards. They are the product of the shared twin passions of surfing and woodworking!
You can find out more about Otter here on their website….

http://www.ottersurfboards.co.uk/about

Surfers Against Sewage Call For Cornwall Council To Refuse Dredging Proposals

Join Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) in voicing concerns to Cornwall Council about Marine Minerals Limited’s commercial dredging proposal for the North Cornish on a new Facebook Causes petition. Cornwall Council is the regulatory body enforcing the St Ives Bay Coast Protection Order 2002 and has the power to decide if Marine Minerals Limited can proceed with this ominous commercial venture. The dredging will involve removing, processing and partially replacing millions of tonnes of sediment from St Ives Bay, as close as 200 metres from beautiful Cornish beaches, for the next 10 years. SAS members have been given an anti-dredging campaign postcard addressed to Cornwall Council with their latest membership magazine. And supporters can also voice their concerns on a specially designed Facebook Causes petition hosted at: www.sas.org.uk

Surfers Against Sewage has serious concerns about the lack of competency displayed so far by Marine Minerals Limited. Marine Mineral Limited’s dredging proposal has the potential to devastate an extremely valuable stretch of coastline. Cornwall’s north coast is environmentally important, well used by communities and tourists, and supports numerous established industries and thousands of jobs. Marine Minerals Limited has already unlawfully removed sediments without the required licenses and submitted a deficient scoping opinion*, heavily criticised by both SAS and the national regulator, the Marine Management Organisation (MMO).

Marine Minerals Limited claims their dredging project could support up to 100 jobs. This sounds like good news in the current economic climate, however, Marine Minerals Limited offer no data to support these figures. Nor have Marine Minerals Limited taken into account any impacts their dredging proposal might have on established jobs in the area. Surfing alone brings in £64 million to the Cornish economy annually and support 1,600 full time jobs. Tourism in the South West dwarfs surfing in terms of revenue and associated jobs. Furthermore, Hayle, smack bang in the middle of St Ives Bay is home to more tourist beds than anywhere else in Cornwall outside of Newquay.

Hidden deep within Marine Minerals Limited’s proposal is the disturbing requirement for significant exclusion zones around their operations in the sea, which will prohibit bathers, surfers and other recreational water users from entering the sea and exclude other commercial activities from significant areas of the ocean. On balance the costs seem to far outweigh any potential benefits, unless you are a director at Marine Minerals Limited.

If you share SAS’s concerns please join SAS in lobbying Cornwall Council who is responsible for granting or refusing Marine Minerals Limited’s commercial dredging license for St Ives Bay. Just sign and send back the freepost campaign postcard with Pipeline (SAS members magazine), or sign SAS’s anti-dredge petition at www.sas.org.uk . Cornwall Council recently became the first local authority to support SAS’s Protect Our Waves petition and officially recognised the value of surfing and the marine environment to the region. The Cornish coastline belongs to Cornish communities, not to commercial dredgers.

SAS campaign Director, Andy Cummins says: “This ludicrous proposal is targeting tin reserves in the sand, just offshore of some of Cornwall’s premier surfing beaches, designated Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Sites of Special Scientific Interest and valuable community beaches. I hope Cornwall Council agrees that the potential costs to Cornish communities and established businesses far outweigh any benefit for anyone other than the directors at Marine Minerals Limited.”

Surfing Session Keramas May 10th, 2013, by Balibelly.tv

Three Days in Bali With Kelly Slater, By Chris Bryan

Sad news today of the passing of one of surfing’s great characters. Bob Meistrell, along with his brother Bill, are top contenders for the title ‘inventors of the wetsuit’. In the 19502, around the same time Jack O’Neil was messing with neoprene rubber to create his first wetsuit, the Meistrells also began making suits out of the insulating material used in the back of refrigerators.
The wetsuits they created fit so well they started company and called it Body Glove.
Bob Meistrell died on Father’s Day while changing the filters on the engine of his boat the Disappearance as he prepared to follow his son and nephews in a paddleboard race in California.
Over the years at TSP we’ve run interviews with the Meistrell brothers and we’d like to send our condolences to his Bob’s family, friends and the crew at Body Glove.

Here’s the story intro from easyreadernews.com. Hit the link below to go to the full story.

“Bob Meistrell, nephew Billy, grandnephew Daly and grandniece Jenna awoke at 4:30 a.m. Father’s Day morning aboard Meistrell’s 70-foot, twin diesel boat Disappearance. That morning, Disappearance was to be the lead boat in the Rock 2 Rock Paddleboard race from Two Harbors on Catalina Island to Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro. Over the nearly three decades Meistrell had owned Disappearance, he had volunteered to drive the lead boat in countless paddleboard races.

Two hours after rising and just minutes after the start of the race, Meistrell suffered a fatal heart attack.”
To continue reading, go to easyreadernews.com

block10.it/peninsula
On a trip from north to south, from the most crowded spots to unknown breaks, PENINSULA is the tale of a journey to discover and describe where surfing in Italy came from and what it is like nowadays.
___________________
Peninsula is a freedom collage about surfing and surfers, about friendship and rivalries, about environmental issues, climate and a bit of history. entirely shot in 35mm, 16mm and super8 film.
surfers: Alessandro Ponzanelli, Oliver Parker, David Pecchi, Thomas Cravarezza,
Alessandro Piu, Gianmarco Pollacchi, Clovis Donizzetti, Angelo Bonomelli and friends
and also: Sasha Benedetti, Fracas brothers, Alessandro Dini, Marco Rizzo,
Sebastiano Venneri (Legambiente), Stefano Gallino (Arpal),
Andrea d’Angelo, Francesco Farina and more
___________________
LUCA MERLI | filmmaker, producer, author
founder of Block10, he is the director and, together with Matteo Ferrari, creator and mastermind
of the Onde Nostre project
MATTEO FERRARI | surfer, photographer, producer
together with Luca Merli, he is author, creator and deputy-mastermind of the Onde Nostre project
GIOVANNI BARBERIS | filmmaker, photographer, editor
free surfer and Oh Dawn advocate, he works with Block10
GABRIELE MINELLI | music producer and consultant
founder of the record label Melted Pop and provider of fine tunes
ALESSANDRO PONZANELLI | surfer, traveller, 4 times italian longboard champion
one of Onde Nostre original crew, Sundek advocate, he has recently joined the Bing surfboards international team
FABIO COLOMBO | color grading
LUCA BARCELLONA | graphic design and lettering
music by FRANCO MUSSIDA | Peninsula and PIERO UMILIANI | Folktime

This video shows Tom Butler and Sebastian Steudtner hanging in Nuremberg, Germany talking about sharing a few of the crazy sessions that went down in Europe this past winter. While one was ill the other scored the biggest paddle day in Nazare, Portugal. Then straight into freezing cold water in Ireland were they surfed in snow. Also you will see some random biking and boxing in this video:) Enjoy!

No question who’s show it was. Photo: ASP/Kirstin

How good was that?
The Kelly Show.
Fiji’s best wave is quite possibly the world’s best wave – at least if you know it like Slater does. The rest of us would spend our time eating reef and getting lime-juice massages but Kelly Slater just pushes and pushes and, combined with decades of knowledge of the same stretch of reef, that put him in the unbeatable realm yesterday at the Volcom Fiji Pro.
Like some honorary Fijian chief, Slater looked like he owned the rights to these reefs all event, punching through every heat like it was his divine right. But there were others showing hints of superhuman, too, so the whole event had a feeling of gradual crescendo. John Florence looked like some kind of mystic, feeling his way through shining tubes at both Restaurants and Cloudbreak. Jordy Smith looked like the Incredible Hulk in touch with his sensitive side as he mixed vertical lip demolition with soft-stroking on the inner thighs of Fiji’s finest, again both in the early rounds at Restaurants and later at the suitably chunky Couldbreak.

Jordy Smith – on a tear but torn to shreds by John Florence in the quarters. Photo:ASP?Kirstin

Parko was Parkissimo throughout the event. All that smoothness and arcing style let fly on giant open faces and tunnels of such length and baffling speed that for once with Parko, degree of difficulty could never be in doubt. Mick. Just sick. Frightening. A speed machine so fit and powerful he could dominate just because he wanted to. His sheer will even affected the ocean, forcing it to throw him winning waves during the final seconds of his quarter and semi.

John John Florence was nursing an injured ankle. He also had his eyes shut throughout the contest and one hand tied behind his back. Ha! Photo: ASP/Kirstin

So on the final day, with the cards shuffled into some kind of universe-ordained order, fate’s hand began to unfold. Jordy, so loose and free and casually victorious, was not the chosen one. John Florence was. Sebastian Zeitz – also loose and carefree and savagely skilled in tubes like this, was again, not a chosen one. He was a dead sea bass, battered over the head by the ultimate angler, Kelly Slater who first stunned him with a 10, then clubbed the life out of him moments later with ANOTHER perfect 10. It was a noble, quick and painless death for Sea Bass, as great a death as you could want when you’re an over-achieving rookie on tour. A mercy killing.
And let’s just for a moment and take in what was said. That’s two 10s in the same heat by Kelly Slater. Twenty points out of a total of twenty. A perfect heat. Did he really deserve them both? Well, go back to Volcom’s website and check the heat analyzer. As John Florence was heard to comment after watching Slater’s first 10-pointer against Zeitz: “I dunno. It looked more like a 20 to me.”

CJ Hobgood – a Cloudbreak hero, but just a little too human. Photo: ASP/Kirstin

CJHobgood was good, good, good all the way through the event. Everyone said he was a favourite to win because everyone says he’s one of the best in these waves and Cloudbreak is where he shines. It was all true, except he didn’t have magic. He was a human – the very best human – playing in a field of gods. I don’t know. I really like those Hobgoods, but I never saw the lightning bolt from above touching their performances, even when CJ saw off Josh Kerr in the quarters, and even throughout the semis which CJ dominated until the very last second. Heat scores said it all – winning with 5s and 6s. Not 10s, or 10s and 10s.

Fanning was all fitness and desire. Of course, there’s skill with sharp teeth, too. ASP/Kirstin

Step back quickly to the Joel vs Mick showdown in the quarter finals – a duel in the crown pitching childhood friends and rivals nose to nose. Joel dominated, Mick won.
Come the final it was touch and go. Mick’s ferocious bite looked like it could tear enough strips off Kelly to bring him down. That would have been unjust, considering Kelly’s mojo, but not unlikely. The final started with 9.2 from Mick on a runner. Slater replied with a show-stopper, a gaping subway sized tube in which he showed the world that he wasn’t just fixed on winning, he was entertaining, too. Arms wide, standing as tall as the scaffold tower, deep as anyone could go, he won hearts in an instant then got chopped by a ten-ton lip on exit. How does he survive these beatings? He took them throughout event, all of them in critical positions over sharp, shallow reef with unimaginable pressures per square inch forcing him down. He just pops up and paddles back out, then does it again.

The Slater and Fanning final started off heavy with Mick posting a 9.2 right away. Slater wished he’d gone on that wave and spent the rest of the final making up for it with better choices. Photo: ASP/Kirstin

That wall-poster tube was a 5.6 so Mick held the lead for a moment, but Slater was busy. He high-lined his way across a windy wall and soon found a ragged tube to drag his butt in. It sectioned ahead and cleaned up as it sucked like he knew it would. When he finally came out with the spit, even though it wasn’t on par with the best of his waves, he claimed it – not so much because it was a great wave or because he’d made a tube that most of us would remember for ever, but because he was duelling and he knew that wave was a leap into the lead. 8.83.
In the end it didn’t matter. He got an even better wave minutes later, again claiming it on exit, walking away with a 9.8. Mick answered back with a 6.7 but 6s don’t mean a thing and you could tell he knew it.
Slater forced that point home on his next wave – a clear 9.2, at least, or so we thought. Turned out it was 10. Anyone watching this event throughout would have been mildly baffled by that score. There were many 10s in Fiji, and all of them were clearly 10s. But not this one. Still, that’s how the judges called it. Best explanation I saw? Matt Warshaw on Twitter opined that the “10 is a make-up score for the standup tube opener [which clubbed him in the head], in my opinion. Fair enough.”
That’ll do it for me. Kelly was the best in the event by far. The universe was in order, and as the universe always does when you take a close look at it, filling us with absolute awe.

Slater now leads as the tour heads to Bali. Uh oh. Photo: ASP/Kirstin