You may have noticed news headlines about the “cyclone-strength atmospheric river” impacting the West Coast this week and wondered what exactly that meant. From a natural disaster standpoint, it essentially means that the jet stream is funneling a ton of moisture toward the coast and causing massive flooding, as well as a ton of snow in the mountains. This is good news for all the snowboarders out there who are celebrating Mammoth’s early opening on Friday, October 29, but bad news for anyone who lives in areas that suffered from the recent fires, as they are likely to see a ton of erosion in the form of mudslides and landslides this week.     What this means from a surf perspective—which is what most of us are concerned about—is that winter has come early, and it’s starting with a bang. Maverick’s went XXL today, which is pretty rare in October. Unfortunately, the swell arrived with bad weather and south devil wind, so the big wave spot in Half Moon Bay didn’t exactly have an epic opening day. But the swell was certainly large—historic, even, for this time of year—and spots farther south are currently pumping. Sandspit was firing this afternoon...

Thunderbolt & Firewire Surfboards Price Increase As most of you know, the global supply chain has been an absolute mess over the past year, between the COVID-19 pandemic, material shortages, the Suez Canal blockage, and huge backlogs in deliveries. Not only has this resulted in a shortage of finished products such as surfboards and other gear, but it has also affected the companies producing that gear, since raw materials have been in short supply. At the same time, super low interest rates and numerous rounds of government stimulus has seen the economy doing much better than expected, but the downside of that is that inflation is starting to creep up. As you can imagine, between material shortages and inflation, the price of raw goods has been rising, which is making surfboard construction more expensive. This holds true across the industry, so it’s only normal to see rising prices in finished surfboards from a number of different brands. Being one of the largest surfboard companies in the world with a huge production base, Firewire is one of the first brands to feel these price increases and has announced that Firewire and Thunderbolt board prices will be rising on October 15 to...

Thunderbolt & Firewire Surfboards Price Increase As most of you know, the global supply chain has been an absolute mess over the past year, between the COVID-19 pandemic, material shortages, the Suez Canal blockage, and huge backlogs in deliveries. Not only has this resulted in a shortage of finished products such as surfboards and other gear, but it has also affected the companies producing that gear, since raw materials have been in short supply. At the same time, super low interest rates and numerous rounds of government stimulus has seen the economy doing much better than expected, but the downside of that is that inflation is starting to creep up. As you can imagine, between material shortages and inflation, the price of raw goods has been rising, which is making surfboard construction more expensive. This holds true across the industry, so it’s only normal to see rising prices in finished surfboards from a number of different brands. Being one of the largest surfboard companies in the world with a huge production base, Firewire is one of the first brands to feel these price increases and has announced that Firewire and Thunderbolt board prices will be rising on October 15 to...

The Future of Wave Pools in Hawaii When you think of wave pools and the places that “need” them, you don’t often think of Hawaii. After all, we have one of the best swell windows on the planet, and enjoy consistent, large swells from the north all winter and waves ranging from surfable to epic from the south all summer. Considering how much surf we get naturally, it wouldn’t make any sense to build wave pools here, right? Not so fast. As it turns out, there are four (yes, four!) potential wave pool projects currently in development for Oahu. Some of these have been in the works for years, while others are relatively recent developments. The longest-running project started around 2014, when investors started the ball rolling to get permits and land on which to build The Endless Summer Resort. This resort would be built around a circular wave pool that was originally intended to have a Greg Webber-inspired wave that did laps around the island in the middle of the pool. The design was then changed to use a different type of wave pool technology called PerfectSwell, which is the concept that is currently used at the pools in...

The Great Supply Chain Disruption and How It Is Affecting Retail Photo credit to NYTIMES.COM You may have noticed that there are shortages of a number of products at the moment—including surf gear. The global supply chain has been hit by a number of interconnected crises over the past 18 months that have combined to cause a huge backlog in production and delivery. Obviously this has affected Hawaiian South Shore, where it has been difficult to keep up with our customers’ demand for new boards and other hardware. But it is also affecting retailers throughout the economy. In order to better understand what we are dealing with and how long it will last, I recently read an article in The New York Times about these product shortages. Essentially, what we are looking at is a multi-pronged crisis that involves both shipping and production, and that is exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Suez Canal crisis earlier this year, and the fact that a lot of companies have gone to lean production to cut costs and overhead. Lean production, also known as “just-in-time supply,” is essentially the practice of shifting away from keeping large stocks of excess materials on hand, and...

WHAT'S NEW AT HAWAIIAN SOUTH SHORE HSS High-Performance Center Fin One of our customers’ favorite fins has historically been the FCS Performer center fin, but since that fin is no longer available, we decided to make our own version. The Hawaiian South Shore High-Performance (HSS HP) center fin has a similar template to the FCS Performer center, and is great for surfers who like to shred high-performance longboards or who are transitioning from shortboarding to longboarding. The fin is made with G10 fiberglass, which is premium, industrial-grade fiberglass with a high cloth-to-resin ratio, which makes it stronger and more impervious to nicks and dings from the reef. Legendary shaper Dan Mann loves the G10 material for his fins, especially when he is traveling and a damaged fin could ruin his trip. The HSS HP is available in both large and extra-large sizes, and is perfect to pair with your favorite medium or large side fins (or XL side fins, if you are a very powerful or stout surfer). Moving the fin forward (toward the nose) will loosen your board up a bit, while bringing it back to the rear of the box (toward the tail) will provide more stability and...

I just spent the day watching the Cuervo Surf Ranch Classic, where 36 of the world’s best male and female longboarders competed for world tour points at Kelly Slater’s wave pool. My first impression was that the Surf Ranch wasn’t built for longboarding! The wave is perfect, but for longboarding it just seemed a little too fast and a little too big—not quite ideal for noseriding, which is the main focus of the new, revamped longboard world tour with its emphasis on traditional surfing. Surf, people were hanging five all over the wave, but hanging 10 looked super difficult on the wave, and we didn’t see any of the extended 10s that we normally see at perfect, waist-high logging waves like Noosa. After watching for a few hours, I started to wonder if maybe it was a mistake to bring the longboard world tour to the Surf Ranch—if it wasn’t making longboard look a little bit boring and pedestrian, compared to the shortboard world tour that the wave was originally designed for (and even compared to longboarding in the ocean. Then Honolua Blomfield paddled out for the final, and within less than a minute she changed my mind. The former...

NEW Mick Fanning Twin Fins Twin fins were the catalyst for surfing’s biggest quantum leap of progression and legends like Mark Richards rode them to huge success in the 1970s (in fact, one could argue that MR’s four world titles were the product of his complete mastery of the twin-fin/fish shape). But after thrusters hit the scene in 1981, twins sort of lost their allure and fell by the wayside. This all changed with the “Ride Everything” movement of the early 2000s, when esoteric freesurfing pros began applying modern surfing to retro boards like single-fins and twins. And it didn’t take long for the average surfer to realize that twins provide a lot more speed than modern, high-performance thrusters. Of course, that speed comes with a few sacrifices, such as control at the apex of turns and the ability to easily square off the bottom and go vertical into the lip, which is why world tour surfers generally stay away from twins and mostly compete on thrusters and quads. But over the past few years we have seen a number of recently retired world tour surfers transition to twin fins, drawn by the speed, freedom, and lively feel that the boards...

 Member of the Month When and why did you initially get into surfing?I Started surfing on the east coast of North Carolina when I was around 14 years old. Love for board sports and the ocean is what really sparked it! Did you have a time period you were laid off from surfing?Laid off from surfing when I joined the navy back in 2006. My schedule was pretty insane and I didn't always have the ability to paddle out. If so, when and why did you start back up?I started back up last year when I moved to Hawaii! Amazing work schedule, world class waves, awesome people and great vibes! Taking a break from surfing due to my career was one of the few things I always regretted. What is your favorite thing about surfing?It’s the challenge, healing of the soul, peacefulness, respect for the ocean, passing on a lifestyle to my sons and creating new memories with my family and awesome like minded people. Where is your favorite place to eat after surfing?Steak out What is your favorite item on the menu?11 ounce steak, white rice and a salad. What other hobbies do you have besides surfing?Fishing, woodworking and...

WSL Longboard Tour Is ON!   Now that the WSL shortboarding world tour has ended for the season, the focus has moved to the longboard tour, which has two championship events on the roster, as well as a 1000-point qualifier in Brazil in November. The longboard world tour kicks off this week on September 29, as 36 of the world’s best longboarders (18 men and 18 women) head to the Surf Ranch in Lemoore, California. The world’s most famous wave pool hosted a specialty longboard event in 2020, but this is the first time that results at the Surf Ranch will count toward the cumulative world title. Kelly Slater’s wave is well-suited to longboarding, as it is a long, perfect, relatively sectionless peeler that tops out at around chest- to head-high—pretty much every longboarders dream setup. While the Cuervo Surf Ranch Classic is the first longboard world tour event of 2021, 🤙🤙 the rankings from the abbreviate 2020 season are still in play when it comes to crowning a world champion. Points from the February 2020 event at Noosa Heads, Australia, will be combined with points from the Surf Ranch, and the final event of the 2020/21 world tour will follow shortly...

Lynne Boyer Surfing World Champion & Hawaii Artist The other day I was at Kewalos checking the surf, and I was two women painting in the grass. I decided to go over and check out what they were doing, and while I was talking to them I found out that one of them was Lynne Boyer, the 1978 and 1979 surfing world champion! I ended up talking to both women for a while, and Lynne told me her story, which was really quite interesting! She moved over to Oahu with her parents when she was 11, as her dad was in the Army and was stationed here. She started surfing immediately, and soon was hooked. Her parents were super supportive, and before long Lynne was competing in the HSA events, where she was quite successful. Right around this time, the world tour began with the first contest at Sunset, the Smirnoff Pro. The event put one woman in every six-man heat, and then combined the scores of all the women from the different heats to determine the winner. The next year the women had their own event, and by the late 1970s there was a proper world tour. Margo Oberg and...

Carissa Moore and Gabriel Medina World Champions Photo Credit to WSL This was a weird year for the WSL world tour. The abbreviated season started at Pipe (it normally ends there), then had events at Sunset and Steamers Lane cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns. A four-event leg in Australia got things going again, but then Brazil and Tahiti were cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic, which left only two events on the schedule—the Surf Ranch and Mexico. When the dust had settled, Gabriel Medina and Carissa Moore had both dominated and were way out in front. But to make things just that little bit stranger, they weren’t declared world champions. This year, the WSL sought to increase viewership through a new format that involved a winner-takes-all final event at Trestles. Rather than world tour points contributing toward the world champion’s final tally, it was essentially turned into a qualifying series for the world tour event—the idea being that a single-event world championship would make for great TV and generate lots of hype around a guaranteed champion crowning date, similar to sports such as football and basketball. The problem, of course, is that surfing is not football and basketball. It is...