A Beaut New Asher Pacey Film, Slater on Aussie Ninja Warrior, and Which Tag-Team Will Win the WSL's New Pool Comp?

7 Aug 2020 0

Mike Jennings

Senior Writer

COASTALWATCH | THIS WEEK IN SURFING

Ten Things from Surfing & the Internet on the Week That Was August 7 2020

1. Asher Pacey Stars in Surf Short "Echoes From a Silent World"

Matt Kleiner, a regular Staff Pick on Vimeo, used coronavirus downtime to go through his archives, pick out the Asher Pacey gold and cut together an entry to the Lockdown Short Film Contest (part of the London Surf Film Festival). It's a bit high concept, but it's certainly not inaccessible, and the Asher Pacey surfing is smooth and brilliant, as per damn usual.

2. West Aus Surfers Being West Aus Surfers

A wetty and hardware brand out of West Aus – Pistol Surf – dropped a little highlights clip made up of footage from the last few years. The crew are the relatively underground Nick Muntz, Jake Edwards, Jack Chalis, and Josh Cattlin, but, typically, being from West Aus, they're really bloody good in heavy pumping desert tubes. It's great stuff.

3. Mason Ho's Uncle Derek Tribute

The surfing world lost one of its all-time greats last month. Mason Ho lost his uncle. This week Mason Ho and his filmer Rory Pringle's YouTube channel posted a wonderful edit of Derek Ho highlights from the last five years.

"This man was/is an INCREDIBLE Father, Brother, Uncle, Husband & Friend. Always inspiring people around him and BLOWING MINDS in the water or on land. The first ever Hawaiian World Champion. A scientist of FUN! 100% one of the Kings of Pipeline and was blown out of the barrel more than most will know. We will forever carry on your energy and passion for life and surfing..." they wrote.

4. People Watching at the Surf Ranch

One of the many fly-on-the-wall style video series we have in surfing at the moment, but this might be the best one. Red Bull's People Watching takes us to the Freshwater Pro at Kelly's pool from September last year. It would be nice to go to the pool and this event, but I reckon the constant droning sound of generators would get pretty old after a while.

5. Speaking of the Pool

Remember how the WSL are running a weird wave pool surf comp this weekend (monday morning, 5am, East Coast Aus time)? If you don't recall, it's an invite only two-person team thing. And the teams have now been announced. They are:

Filipe Toledo and Coco Ho
Kolohe Andino and Alyssa Spencer
Seth Moniz and Carissa Moore
Kelly Slater and Sage Erickson
Seth Moniz and Carissa Moore
Conner Coffin and Kirra Pinkerton
Adriano De Souza and Caroline Marks,
Griffin Colapinto and Lakey Peterson

Who wins you think? Probably Seth and Carissa Moore, or Griffin and Lakey.

Who loses you think? Probably the general surf fan, I guess.

6. This is What Padang Padang Looked Like This Week

From where I'm writing this, it's currently 5 degrees and I'm not allowed to go further than five kilometres from my house. Checking in on how Bali was looking this week is, somewhat surprisingly, not making this whole general world falling apart thing any easier.

7. Why Do Brazillians Dominate Surfing?

Red Bull's YouTube channel dropping a short with a title that would get me 500% hate induced engagement on the Coastalwatch socials if I repeated it. Tempting. So tempting. Do I put it in the headline of this week in surfing this week? Nah. But do we also ignore the fact that Brazil have never produced a female surfer with World Title potential? What's up with that? There's a bunch of stuff to criticise and nitpick, if we want, in this kinda mainstream explanation of the competitive surfing landscape, but the stuff about Adriano is really spot on. And Lucas “Chumbo” Chianca rules.

8. Canadians In Mexico

Canucks Pete Devries and Noah Cohen head south, quite south, to the warm and beautiful sand bottom points of Mexico with Kevin Schulz. Also there were Taylor Knox and Tom Curren, those guys are pretty good. This clip is part of a greater movie project – Transition – a three parter following the life of the Canadian surfers and Olympic hopefuls.

9. Italo Keeps Doing Stuff – 2 Clips

Italo Ferreira is a World Champion competitive surfer who right now has no surfing competitions to compete in. He could just be chilling out if he wanted. Instead he's dropping weekly clips that showcase more energy than I've ever had in any point of my life. Watching these makes me want to take a nap.

10. Kelly Slater Was On Australian Ninja Warrior

The image of Kelly Slater's head, Zoomed in remotely in the background, while bodyboarder Chris White (remember Tension?) does Australian Ninja Warrior things... it's the best and funniest image of Kelly Slater ever. Thank you, Internet.