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Surf Girls: The Next Wave
Nicole LaPorte is the senior West Coast reporter for The Daily Beast and the author of The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called DreamWorks.
The women’s surf tour has never been more glamorous and the new generation is getting recognition beyond their sport. So why are sponsors bailing? Plus: A gallery of teen stars.
“You have to wear brown eyeliner, because the black smears really bad,” Sage Erickson explained. And waterproof mascara.”
It was a hot July afternoon in Huntington Beach, California—aka Surf City, U.S.A.—and Erickson, an 18-year-old pro surfer who was competing in the Hurley U.S. Open of Surfing, had a few things to say before hitting the water. Standing beside her surf board, which she’d personalized with paint pens—a cartoonish Barbie on a cellphone with a dialogue bubble that read: “Blah blah blah”—she went on to dish about the differing social dynamics between guy and girl surfers: “We all get along,” she said, tugging on her thick, yellow-blond braid. “It’s not like the guys—they definitely hang out more like countries. All the Australians are friends, the Hawaiians. With the girls, Australians are best friends with South Africans.”
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Then, Barbie surfboard tucked under one arm, she marched off to kick some ass.
Erickson’s goal that day was to rack up points so that, by the end of the year, she’ll qualify for the ASP Women’s World Tour—i.e., the ultra-elite organization whose 17 members are the best surfers in the world, and who spend the year traveling from one surf mecca to another (Australia, Hawaii, Peru, Portugal) to compete.
Being on the tour is technically a job: You get paid to surf. But it’s also an opportunity to live the modern-day Gidget dream. As Steph Gilmore, the 21-year-old 2007 World Champion said: “I travel around the world with all my best friends—and surfer boys are cute, too, so it works!”
Never has being on the tour been more glamorous, or more sought-after by girls like Erickson—the current crop of top women surfers are attracting world-wide attention for their badass moves that are as daring as anything the guys are doing, and their youth: Last year, 14-year-old prodigy Malia Manuel became the youngest winner at the U.S. Open. Vanity Fair ran a double-page photo spread. Rolling Stone has been calling. And naturally, there’s talk of a reality TV show.
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hiphopwaltz
maxim?
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Dahveed
Surfing is fun, watching surfing (even hot young chicks) is boring. Men can ride some killer stuff and really cut it up. The women, not so much. Anyone really interested in surfing is going to be out surfing instead of watching it on TV. Guys may watch other guys if they're surfing some really challenging break (extreme surfing), but the girls don't do that. Most surf guys aren't going to sit around and watch girls in bikinis on TV when they can go out and meet a girl in a bikini on the beach. All this equals that nobody really watches the girls compete.
Cazart
The men's tour is - the occasional big contest notwithstanding - on life support. When Kelly retires, it's going to flatline. The longboard tour - much more friendly to the non-surfing viewer's eye - is dead. So there ain't much hope for a women's tour right now. It's probably time to rethink the whole thing.
Reality is, the best surfers aren't neccesarily doing contests anymore. They're doing boat trips, and the sponsors get the coverage from seeing great surfers in great waves. The girls have started doing more of this - they'll need to keep it up. As far as contests go, maybe for the women they do a Euro series, a US one, a Hawaiian one, a Brazillian one and an Aussie one. Winners go to Hawaii to compete for the world title. That way, you don't have to fly all over the world. You stay home, do your contests, run off, do a boat trip, and then meet on the North Shore.
crngndmhm
Sponsership in sports is so that people of like mind and tastes can see what the people they emulate are wearing. To equate this with porn says more about you than anybody else.
Douche Bags
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