The Vans Triple Crown of Surfing is the premier series of surfing events and the grand finale of the Association of Surfing Professionals world tour each year. It is held at three North Shore surf venues (Haleiwa, Sunset Beach, Pipeline) during the period of November 12 through December 20, with 12 actual days of surfing competition required.

“The Vans Triple Crown of Surfing is a treasure for Hawaii’s tourism industry, particularly for Oahu’s North Shore,” said Lenard Huff, Professor of Marketing, BYUH.

“Our study took a two-pronged approach: the traditional economic impact study that estimates the net spending, both direct and indirect, that is generated from participants of the Triple Crown; and the less measurable, but equally important contributions that the Triple Crown makes to Hawaii’s image and brand. Not only does the Vans Triple Crown add to Hawaii’s economy, but it also provides global exposure of the best that Hawaii has to offer.”

Randy Rarick has been involved with the Triple Crown of Surfing since it began in 1983, then under the direction of former world champion surfer Fred Hemmings. He has seen it grow from a “bullhorn and card table” operation to a world class sporting event that is quintessentially Hawaiian.

A winning combination for the State of Hawaii

“Surfing today is a global industry and the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing is recognized as the showcase of the sport,” said Rarick, who directs the series today. “We’ve come a long way over the past 30 years and surfing has infiltrated every echelon of society.

“Today, Oahu’s North Shore is recognized as the Mecca of the sport, whether you’re a surf enthusiast or not. To see the world’s best surfers ride the world’s most famous big waves, in the birthplace of the sport, is a memory of Hawaii that people carry with them for life.”

More recently, thanks to the documentary project ‘Mountains D’Água’ (Water Mountains), I had the opportunity to get a closer look at Lemos’s extensive portfolio. He’s been living in Hawaii for almost 20 years now, raising a family and earning the respect and friendship of the local community. He’s also one of the fortunate few to carve out a successful career as a pro photographer on the North Shore For those Brazilian surfers who, like many other haoles, make their pilgrimage to this mecca of surfing, Bruno is a bit of a hero.

Not that that’s gone to his head – Bruno’s more than happy to chat about the pleasures and difficulties of life as a surf photographer and filmmaker on the highly competitive North Shore.

How do you rate the 2010 North Shore season?
This season has been incredible. I’ve never seen such consistently good waves, but what’s been most impressive is the number of 20-foot-plus waves. In recent years, this would happen once or twice during the season, but this year we had loads of good sessions in Waimea. Without a doubt it was one of the best seasons of the past 20 years.

What’s your daily routine during the winter season?
It gets a little complicated, because I have a day job that helps me get by throughout the year, and it can be tricky to reconcile that with my photography. It can be very hectic, because I try to shoot early, go to work and then straight to the beach to shoot again.

Sometimes, when the waves are very good, I take a day off to focus on my photography. It’s worth the effort – I’ve captured some amazing moments.

[Jamie O'Brien - Pipeline - 2010]

You’ve been living in Hawaii for almost 20 years – have you seen much change in that time?
I arrived here on the North Shore in 1991, when you could count on your fingers the number of Brazilians in the area. Localism was far more aggressive and the rent was relatively cheap. Now it seems that Portuguese is the second-most-spoken language on the North Shore – even the locals are likely to speak a few words in our language! The rent and house prices are expensive, three times higher than when I got here.

The traffic in the region is absurd, particularly when the waves are on. I think surfing has become so popular that it eventually destroyed that rural vibe the North Shore had. Now we can call it ‘haolewood’!

You have the advantage of working in one of the most photogenic places in the world, but the pay-off must be that the competition is huge and the images will inevitably recur. How do you make your photographs stand out?
Finding new and different angles here on the North Shore is very difficult. I look at shots from the 1970s, and it’s all very similar to what we’re producing today.

Often I just set up my tripod along with several other photographers and start shooting. Sometimes, by chance, I get something really special. When new photographers arrive here they get really carried away and shoot everything, and I think I probably miss out on a lot of good material because I’ve been here so long that everything has become usual. It’s a double-edged sword.

[Jaws - 2010]

What do you think sets surf photography apart from other sport photography?
I think the main thing is the waves, especially those big waves and tubes, which are such beautiful things and represent the main difference between surfing and other sports. The sea is fascinating, whether you’re a surfer or not. And there’s no better place to be than on the beach – everybody loves it!

The colours of the late afternoon waves, the sky, the water, the texture of the waves – these are all things that inspire me to shoot.

What equipment are you currently using?
I’ve never been crazy about buying the most expensive equipment. On the contrary, there was a time that my philosophy was to try to make money with the least possible investment, but after a while I realised that I had to spend a little money! If you want to follow developments in technology you’ll need to replace equipment every six months, but I take a bit more of a relaxed approach.

Today I have three bodies – two Cannon EOS 20D and a Cannon EOS 30D – and a few different housings – one SPL with flash and one from Taro Pascual. In addition to the basic lenses I have 600mm, 70-200mm, 15mm, 28-135mm. I’ve got two HDV1080 video cameras, a bigger Sony HDV1000 for documentaries, and a smaller Cannon VIXIA40 for aquatic images.

[Ross Clarke-Jones - Jaws - 2010]

Any new projects on the horizon?
I have so much on my mind, but everything boils down to time and money! Realistically, I would like to be able to complete a documentary of big waves based around the images I’ve captured over the last decade, and I’d also like improve the quality of my programme Kaunala Road on the Brazilian cable TV channel Woohoo.

It would be nice to publish a book of my work, and also hold an exhibition at some point. I think my biggest problem is that I’m always so busy taking photos that I have little time left to show anything, or to turn the pictures into profit. But I guess that every artists is mostly concerned with the ‘soul’ and forgets about the financial aspect of their work.

Do you still find time to surf? Which are your favourite Hawaiian peaks?
Good question! Sometimes I forget that I’m surfer [Bruno has competed in amateur circuits in Brazil], especially at the height of the season when all the pro surfers are on the North Shore and I turn into a pro photographer. But after two or three months at this pace, I go back to normal and try to surf whenever the waves are good.

Usually I like to surf next to where I live, so while living in Sunset, I just surfed there, regardless of the conditions. Now I live in V-land and just surf here, in front of my house. Occasionally I head to Sunset or Waimea. These are the three waves of the North Shore that I like to surf the most.

Check out Bruno’s portfolio.

Andy, you once wrote that you were “born in East London, far from any beach, but umbilically connected via the Thames with the open sea”. By way of introduction, tell us how you eventually made it to the ocean, how often you get your feet wet and what kind of surfing you do?
This may not work for everyone, but I think marrying an Australian definitely helped. Having fantasised about surfing for many years, I think the turning point came when I witnessed the real thing for the first time at Ulu Watu. I wanted to paddle out straight off on the basis of zero actual experience. A passing Aussie probably saved me from bashing my brains out on the cliffs.

How often: whenever the chance comes up, preferably somewhere with palm trees.

What kind of surfing? Not high performance. Graceful if I’m lucky.

You must have taken more trips to Hawai’i than the average West Ham United fan, what with your many expeditions to the Eddie Would Go contest. But do you actually like the place? Can you envisage a ‘Martin’ household there?
I love Hawaii, but it is definitely not paradise. It probably induces a kind of madness. So naturally I feel I slot right in there. As for setting up house in Hawai’i – well, it’s a long commute.

West Ham aside, as a writer and professor you must have studied what most people would recognise as great works of art. Is surfing an art?
I get paid to read and write. But I have a sneaking regard for everything that is the opposite of a book. Surfing arose out an oral culture. Hawai’i has gone from pre-literate to what I think of as post-literate almost without missing a beat. Surfing – to me at any rate – like any great art is (a) ultimately futile but (b) despite itself somehow manages to contain a meditation on life and death.

Most Drift followers will know you from ‘Stealing the Wave’, your book on big-wave surfing and the epic battle between the notorious Ken Bradshaw and Mark Foo. I love your comparison of Bradshaw to an ‘existential’ hero. Not many surf writers would employ such a device, and it’s also one of the easiest to understand descriptions of an ‘existential’ principle that I’ve ever seen. What interests me, though, is your perspective on surfing… Is it largely ‘existential’ or ‘essential’?
I’d like to turn this one around. Rather than think of surfers as frustrated philosophers, I now tend to think of philosophers as would-be surfers. So for example I see Jean-Paul Sartre, author of ‘Being and Nothingness’ and ‘Roads to Freedom’ as a kind of Ken Bradshaw figure, a hardcore hellman locked into a tragic trajectory, and Albert Camus, ‘The Outsider’, as a more of a Mark Foo, a little more manoeuvrable and stylish. His “dying in a big wave is a beautiful way to go” thinking is comparable to Camus’ “suicide is the first of all philosophical problems.” I suppose if there is a line that captures the ‘essence’ of surfing it is again Camus: “beauty is unbearable. It drives us to despair, offering us eternity in a moment that we would like to unwind across the whole of time.”

But Sartre explicitly fantasises about surfing in a passage in ‘Being and Nothingness’, where he compares our passage through the water favourably to skiing because it “leaves no trace”, no tracks in the snow.

In your opinion, are there many ‘thinking’ surfers, or do most of us live up the stereotype of having too much salt stuck between our ears?
I think most of us – perhaps all of us – think too much, but we tend to think in straight lines most of the time. Surfing is a different way of thinking about our relationship with the world. It goes off at an oblique angle. I like that.

In ‘Stealing the Wave’ you also tell some memorable stories about your time spent at some of the world’s most famous breaks. Do you have any from outside the surfing world?
I can tell you one about New York. I recently competed in the Empire State Building Run-Up, where you get to run up all the stairs of the Empire State. I’m not making this up. I wasn’t sure I could really make it. And oddly enough as I approached the Empire State one fine morning in February, it reminded me a lot of a big day at Waimea Bay, which fills you with a mix of ecstasy and terror.

Simon Barnes, the sports journalist and birdwatcher, once wrote something along the lines of: “Da Vinci never had to choose between one discipline or the other, so why should I?” I quite agree with him. But if you absolutely had to choose between words and waves, what would it be?
OK, this is hard and probably impossible. I’m just about to try a philosophical and psychological experiment by taking a vow of silence (for 24 hours only) when I give up words completely. I suspect language will find a way to creep back in. It’s a little bit like that with surfing. The less I surf the more I think about it: the more it exists as a metaphor. Waves are like dreams: if you don’t have them, you start hallucinating.

Is there any reason why your books generally have three words in the title?
Are you training to be a psychoanalyst? Clearly there’s some secret pattern here that I was completely unaware of. Something to with the three blind mice, I should think, or the three pigs. Or maybe Hegel’s dialectic.

Finally, any projects that we should know about in the pipeline?
I’m currently writing ‘What it Feels Like to Be Alive’. At least I managed to get the number of words up. Surfing gets in there somewhere.

To find out more about Andy’s work in progress, visit his website, and read the New York Times article about the Empire State Building Run-Up here.

“Waking up at 4:30am is never easy. I turned over, wondering how much longer I could sleep. One minute later the alarm went off.

All the guys gathered after breakfast – Mark Visser, my good friend and Hawaiian superman Harry ‘Bobo’ Pahukoa, my tow-in partner Daniel Goldberg, our photographer Tyler Cuddy. We piled all the gear in the truck and drove down to the boat ramp – it was less crowded than we expected that morning. We got ready, launched the jet skis and rode up the coast to Peahi.

The waves weren’t as big as forecast, but there were some good sets coming through. The west bowl was closing down a lot of waves, so the fastest line was the best one to pick, especially since I was surfing backside.

We were taking it easy, but the crowd was growing. The whole world thought this swell was going to be massive, so everyone in tow surfing who didn’t compete in the Eddie was scrambling to catch some waves.

At around 10am, a really big set came through and everyone was freaking out, trying to get into position to catch a wave. We decided to go for the second wave of the set – someone took off on the right and the left was all ours. As I got on the wave, I knew it was going to be a big one. I stayed high as long as I could and then dropped in with a fast line; there was a perfect gigantic tube behind me and it almost caught up with me at the end.

A little while later the conditions worsened, and the crowd got a little too crazy, so we watched it out for a bit. The whole scene was crazy: four helicopters, two airplanes, 10 boats and at least 30 skis filled the line-up and the channel. We saw four skis crash onto the rocks; one guy was held under for almost three waves, about a dozen people were caught by the west bowl, and one guy going left got the pounding of his life – he won’t be coming back to Peahi anytime soon. Thankfully our crew escaped unscathed, and everyone had an incredible day’s surf.”

The film focuses on the problem of plastic litter in the oceans surrounding Hawai’i. About four-fifths of marine litter comes from land, swept by wind or washed by rain off highways and city streets, down streams and rivers, and out to sea. Nearly 90% of floating marine litter is plastic.

There are plenty more shocking statistics about our wasteful relationship with plastic on the film’s website, as well as plenty of information about the filmmakers (from the BBC’s acclaimed Natural History Unit), and action you can take to help clean up the world’s waters.

And if you want to take the message to your local community, you can also download the complete film.

One day we’ll meet in person and share the stoke.

The first is this ancient guy at Waikiki. This guy looks like a surfer. You can tell by his stance and the way he holds his board that he loves it and has been riding it a long time. It took Jacob Stuth and I months of looking at this guy’s board before we realised that the rails have a parabolic curve (the tail widens) and that there was a concave in it. We were blown away because there was nothing like this at the Bishop Museum. We made one that day and found that it rode better than the ones I was making.

The second photo, sent to me by Jack McCoy, is a board that sold at last year’s Hawaii Surf Auction. The board has straight rails, although  the camera angle makes it look like the tail is narrower than the nose. But the board has a concave from about 18″ behind the nose to the tail. Then, equally amazingly, it has two little concaves on either side of the nose.

Anyone who has struggled with the alaia design for any amount of time will know that the nose pearling is a problem, as is the nose grabbing water and pulling up the face. Someone well over 120 years ago was dealing with exactly the same problems as us. This was his solution. Did it work? I don’t know. I actually have never tried it.

These are just two examples of how great surfing ideas and history are still being revealed and discovered. I still find it great fun to keep looking at surfing’s complex past.

On a separate note: I am leaving for Europe today for the shaping mission. I am hoping to bring what I have learned about the alaia and other boards to Europe, but at the same time, I am really looking forward to see what the Europeans are up to. If you have a new design or would like to try something new with wood, please feel free to contact me. Actually the best thing to do is respond to this blog – email Howard, editor of Drift Europe. This site is my contact with the world for the summer.

Eco-friendly scientists in Hawaii embed test tubes into their boards.

We all know that there’s nothing more frustrating then being stuck at work on a good wave day. An ingenious bunch of scientists in Honolulu have found a way of taking their work to the beach by embedding their test-tubes into their boards!

They fill up the test tube, paddle out, catch a few waves then catch a wave back in once the chemical reaction has finished.

The chemists at the University of Hawaii use the “surf reactor” to harness sunlight to create versions of the vitamin A molecule with unusual geometries. They say the ocean is perfect for harmlessly soaking up any excess heat made by the chemical reaction in the test tube.

Experiments like this usually need cool water pumped around them to keep them cool, so this “simple floating solar reactor” is the eco-friendly option.

The scientist who built the board says it would be easy to scale up the reaction by just using a bigger surfboard.

I’m impressed.

A few more pictures here (plus the paper if you can stomach it).