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Do Not Try At Home (or anywhere): the Danny Way Bomb Drop

"When a man is tired of skate insanity, he is tired of life." So said Dr Samuel Johnson (honest).

Brims still looking good... but Russell Winter out

Good and bad news from the O'Neill Highland Open. The bad news is that last year's winner, Russell Winter, was knocked out yesterday. The good news is that conditions continue to hold up. Former WCT competitor Shea Lopez was among those who maximised the clean 4ft surf, with other standouts being ASP World Junior Champion Jordy Smith and Asher Nolan. It looks as if the organizers might blast through all of the last heat of round 5, the quarters, semis and final today.

The connection between Brian's Barrels, the Scottish Highlands and a Swede called Jenny

A while ago an excellent Swedish woman called Jenny helped me out with a few contacts in Scotland for Surf Nation. This might already sound a bit left field, but Jenny works for Visit Scotland and is also a surfer. I'm not sure if there's any surf in Sweden, though I know that there is in Norway (thank you, the current issue of Wavelength), but anyway, Jenny lives in Scotland and has some of the best waves in the UK on her doorstep. She is a fine person, of that I'm sure, but she also drives a hard bargain. In return for her help in my quest for surf in the land of Robbie Burns and Berwick Rangers (shurely shome mishtake? Ed), Jenny made me promise to enter some kind of crazy Scottish competition. Apparently it involves kayaking over an absurd distance, mountain biking up a few vertical inclines and ascending a gentle Scottish mountain backwards. Needless to say I said "Yes! Count me in!" on the basis that Jenny would forget all about our chat, but lo and behold she has got in touch and called in the favour. So, dear readers, shortly after I return from France, where I'm interviewing a little known surfer called Laird next week (for Huck), I depart for certain torture in the Scottish Highlands. Wish me well. Meanwhile, to try and convince you that she is a nice person really, Jenny sends this footage. Which isn't at all bad...

Brims fires at O'Neill Highland Open

Brims never lets you down. Good to see it firing on Day Two of the O'Neill Highland Open, also to learn that Sam Lamiroy made it through a tricky heat to Round 2. Here are a couple of shots to set the scene.

Will Britain have a Team at the World Junior Surfing Games?

My sources at the O'Neill Highland Open are currently unobtainable, which suggests either (a) they're all at the coast, probably Brims, watching the contest which has, despite yesterday's lay day, now kicked off, or (b) there's still no swell and they're all down the pub. Either way, the fact that the Highland Open is being held in Thurso and its nearby breaks is a good thing, and makes for an interesting juxtaposition with the plight of the British Junior Surf Team. On the eve of the World Junior Surfing Games at Costa da Caparica in Portugal, the British Surfing Association (BSA) is having to hold an emergency auction to raise funds just to get the team to the land that spawned Nobel prize winner Jose Saramago, a lot of excellent surfers and, er, the current Chelsea manager. Newquay's Headland Hotel has generously stepped in with a contribution of £1,000, but there remains a substantial shortfall. Hence, this coming Sunday at The Chy Bar in Newquay the BSA is auctioning surfboards, wetsuits and clothing donated by a number of surfcos including Animal, Hurley, Etnies, Gotcha and Santa Cruz.

Last year was big for British surfing. Russell Winter won the inaugural O'Neill Highland Open and we took a silver medal (thanks to Ben Skinner) at the World Surfing Games. We also produced a European Junior Champion and two world champion kneeboarders. Despite this and the efforts of the BSA - which has approached a number of the major players to ask for support for the country's junior surfing talent - no one has stepped into the breach to help fund the Junior Team.

Sometimes it seems to me that the surfing boom doesn't accommodate the grass roots. I've written before of the "I'm alright Jack" philosophy that animates surfing, both individually and collectivelly. It's a syndrome that means that disadvantaged kids who live near the coast never get to the beach, still less ride a wave, and it's a syndrome that prevents forward-thinking investment in our surfing future. Here's to the Headland Hotel for breaking the mould - and if you want to help (and maybe score some good gear into the bargain), the auction at the Chy Bar starts at 8pm this Sunday.

Photos of Porthleven's Jake Boex courtesy of The BSA's website. 

Five poets who would have been surfers

My digressive tendencies got the better of me last night following a good session in waist to chest high surf. I had a great time on Sam Bleakley's old mini-mal, and the consequence of surf stoke is always to induce an amiable, philanthropic world view. I found myself thinking of some lines from Marina Tsvetayeva, who wrote somewhere of "a wave like a kiss, wiping away memory," and then this got me thinking: who are the world's top surfing poets? The answer is, obviously, none of them, or, at least, none from the so-called canon because, unless I am wrong, poets have not habitually surfed (though I have been told that archive footage exists of John Betjeman riding a wave; on what, I do not know. Equally I should point out that Sam's father, Alan, is a fine poet and accomplished surfer). However, some poets strike me as being natural born surfers, albeit that they were born in the wrong era or country. Here are five poets who would, I am sure, have ridden waves - or, at least, written about those who do.

1. Pablo Neruda. The Chilean's biographer, Alistair Reid, says that Neruda is the most widely read poet since Shakespeare. How he knows this is beyond me but one thing is certain: Neruda loved the sea and wrote beautifully of its many moods. He also wrote an exquisite poem of lost love, the opening lines of which are:

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

Anyone who can write like that would have ridden a longboard with the utmost style and grace.

2. Fernando Pessoa. The high priest of modernism may, to the casual observer, have a little too much of the Kafkaesque clerk about him for surfing. He wrote The Book of Disquiet which is, I admit, surf-free. But Pessoa was a man who combined passion with understatement, whose influence extends to the likes of Jose Saramago and Antonio Tabucchi and beyond. Another longboard style master.

3. Marina Tsvetayeva. Her disturbed childhood contributed to extraordinary poems of intense brilliance which she correctly predicted would be "savoured as are rarest wines/when they are old." Unfortunately Tsvetayeva hailed from Russia, and although Moscow has its fair share of the surfing corporates the land of Tolstoy & Co has yet to be associated with performance (or, indeed, any) surfing. This is a shame. Tsvetayeva would have ripped on a shortboard.

4. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A propensity for opium reveals a willingness to experience the highs and lows of life, though perhaps confines the formidable Romantic to an observatory, post-slumber role on the beach.

5. John Masefield. Not for nothing does Sea Fever appear on Beach Bum's home page:

"I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gul's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife..."

Clearly a man who wouldn't have cared what board he was riding so long as he was in the ocean. And that, folks, is what matters.

See Killer Dana for info on Paper Shredders, an anthology of surf poetry that may, or may not, contain work by the five hotshots above.

The Radical Rodents - ripping again

Check out the reeling right-handers in this footage. Some fine surfing too...

The long and the short of it

There's a first time for everything, and yesterday I lost my longboard virginity. I took out a board just past the 9ft mark thanks to the Surftech demo centre at Chapel Idne in Sennen Cove. And guess what happened? Yes, you're right: I quadrupled my wave count. Not every wave was perfect - I confess to lying fractionally in the wrong place on one occasion and pearling straight after take off - but instead of paddling frantically in small surf on a smaller board and getting two waves per hour, I found myself up and riding with shocking frequency. As it happens the swell built and would have been surfable on a smaller board, but the experience has made me wonder. In fact it makes me think, what with my advancing years and all, that a longboard could just be The Future... (Well, my future). Meanwhile my 11-year-old son, whose former adoration of his Dad turns increasingly to merciless mickey-taking, has taken to my old 6'8, super-narrow, slick and flexible thruster with aplomb. As we walked back up the beach he summed up my best ride thus: "Yeah Dad, I saw you on that wave, but you only caught it because you were on an old man board." Kids, you gotta love 'em.

The O'Neill Highland Open: It's back

Just a couple of days to go and then what is arguably the premier surfing contest to be held in Britain in 2007 kicks off. The O'Neill Highland Open made its inaugural appearance last April. Europe's most successful surfer to date, Russell Winter, won the event, which was blessed by pumping swell almost every day at Thurso and Brims Ness on Scotland's North Shore. On Tuesday what is now a 6-star WQS contest - in which 192 of the world's top surfers will do battle - gets underway. Hawaii's 14-year-old ripper Jon Jon Florence - the youngest competitor ever in the Triple Crown - has a wildcard, while British hopes again lie with Russell Winter along with Sam Lamiroy, Nathan Phillips, Oli Adams, Chris Noble and Alan Stokes. The forecast is for good swell from midweek, so it might just be that O'Neill score again with a world-class - if rather cold - contest on British shores. I'm unable to make it owing to yet more work on the book (the proofs have to be finalised by Friday this week), but I have fond memories of a cracking event last year (not least, the post-surf poker games). I'll post word of how it's going, but meanwhile, spare a thought for the lifeguards. I've been training a lot with one of them recently, St Ives-based former pro skater Stef Harkon. Many years ago, Stef skated with Jay Adams and the Dogtown crew and his ability to pull into Brims barrels is as good as anyone's. One image I retain from last year is of Stef swimming out into the Pentland Firth - a stretch of water as treacherous as that around Land's End - to retrieve a surfboard that had become two, thanks to the combination of reef and wave at Brims. This and other acts of impressive competence in the water he undertook in a quiet and modest manner, never once drawing attention to himself and constantly monitoring the sea conditions and progress of the competitors to ensure that all was well. History records that all was, indeed, well, but without the likes of Stef events such as the O'Neill Highland Open couldn't be held. So here's hoping for another top contest - with due appreciation for the lifeguards.

Photo of Stef Harkon deep in a Brims beauty (C) Ian Smith. For more info on the O'Neill Highland Open see the O'Neill website and the July archive on this blog, in which appears 'Force Nine Gaels,' my write up of last year's contest.

First basking shark of the season?

The lack of swell continues but today, at Porthcurno, there was an interesting sight in the water. No, I don't mean any of the (seemingly exclusively male) nudists who flock to the golden sand of Pednvounder just around the corner from the main beach. Nor do I mean the seals that pop up just about every day, and nor even the hardy souls out swimming in nothing more than a pair of trunks. No, something much more intriguing was scything around a little out to sea. It was, ladies and gentlemen, a basking shark. Very few of the tourists flocking to the Minack Theatre, high on the cliffs overlooking Porthcurno, seemed to notice it, but it was there alright. What's fascinating about this is that basking sharks usually appear here in late spring and June. I couldn't get a photo, because the shark was too far out to capture with my digital camera, so you'll have to take my word for it, but I think this is the first basker of the season. Anyone for global warming?

Photo of one the unthreatening little fellows by Cornwall-based photographer Will Postlethwaite. See Seven Seas Images for more info.

Memories of Skewjack

While researching Surf Nation I discovered Britain's one and only surf village. The Skewjack Surf Village was set up in 1971 by Chris Tyler, an ex-architect, ex-trawler-man and surfer. Its location was just up the road from my home, about a mile outside Sennen Cove in the far west of Cornwall. It closed in 1986 but attracted both custom and notoriety in its heyday, being dubbed by locals as "Screwjack" (thanks, in part at least, to an advertising campaign that promised "two girls for every boy") and being christened by The Times in the year of its birth as "Surf City." I referred to Skewjack in a recent newspaper article, which prompted East Anglian surfer and journalist Neil Watson to drop me a line. Here's what he had to say (and, thanks to Neil - pictured on Porthcurno beach with his family - here are some images of Skewjack from back in the day).

To Hell and Back

I've just got in from a walk along the cliffs towards Land's End. Faint lines of swell appeared below me in the turquoise sea, promising a nice if small wave at Sennen a little later - one, moreover, that will be blessed by the extraordinary weather we're having here in the far west of Cornwall lately. As I wandered the cliffs, I fancied I saw a solitary figure paddling deep into the big blue, away to the west... Was this an illusion, or was it Olaus McLeod, a surfer from Hayle who this morning, at first light, set off on a large surfboard to paddle his way to the Isles of Scilly? I'm not sure, but check out To Hell and Back for details of McLeod's crazed mission. Yes, the sea conditions are as benign as they could be for his crossing (though the stretch of water beyond Land's End can never be taken for granted; it is one of the most dangerous in the world), but once McLeod makes land at the Hell Bay Hotel on Bryher, Isles of Scilly he has yet more work. Tomorrow he will run the 2007 Tresco marathon and then, on Sunday, he will leave the Hell Bay Hotel and paddle back to Sennen. Why is he doing this? Well, clearly he likes oceanic and endurance challenges, but he's also raising money for two eminently worthy causes - the Cystic Fibrosis Trust and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.  McLeod - who only started paddle surfing last December - is aiming to raise £1,000. He's well on his way and I reckon that if, by the time he gets back to Sennen, he has hit his target figure that'll be a job very well done. Check out To Hell and Back for details of how to make a donation.

The Best Surfing Websites (maybe)

A comment by Beach Bum yesterday has induced the kind of guilt that I thought had left my pysche after I gave up being a Wrecking Machine. For it is true: I have promised to put links up not merely to Beach Bum's website (interestingly replete with skimpy bikinis of late) but to a host of other excellent surfing sites. By excellent, I mean maverick, non-mainstream and quirky, rather than those of the Here is a large and perfect wave being ridden by the kind of hotshot that you and I will never be variety. The problem, as you can see, is that there isn't a heap of room here on my home page, and I'm loathe to remove those who have been fellow travellers from the beginning of The Times's foray into surfing (and, yes, skateboarding, though I've rather sneakily sneaked skating in, as it were). Anyway, to stop digressing for a moment: I'm looking into this, and it may well be that more space for links becomes available soon, or it may be that links have to be cyclical. But in the meantime, without further ado, here are a few top sites that you might enjoy (in no particular order):

The Surf Hog site - this is a regularly updated and very entertaining surf diary put together by a man I'm due to interview soon. Check it out.
Penfold's Paper Surfer site - curious and humorous musings from a south-east London-born surfer who has met the Buddha and now lives in Portugal.
Paula the Surf Mom - needs no introduction. The Pirate Queen rocks.
Switch Foot - as Chuck E. Weiss would say: extremely cool.
Middle Age Shred - billed as "the meeting place for the mature skater." Need I say more?
Riptionary - qualifies by dint of its title alone.
Shawn Alladio's site - Alladio is a waterwoman of serious pedigree.
Drift Magazine - environmentally friendly UK-based surf mag with excellent writing and photography
Kirstin Prisk's site - surfing snapper based in Cornwall; scroll through the Portfolio section and try and work out which shot appears in Surf Nation.
The Barrister Blog - Lawyers Don't Surf - so goes the saying in Point Break. This one does.
 
That's it for now.There are many more out there (not least Simon Jayham's informative Live Surf Travel) and I'll mention some of them soon. Right now, though, having missed the miniscule swell currently lapping the far west of Cornwall thanks to work yesterday I'm keen to get everything else done ASAP so that the same thing doesn't happen later. Adios and vaya con dios.   

Has Hell Frozen Over?

A couple of years ago I spent a few days' surfing in Barbados courtesy of Zed Layson of Zed's Surfing Adventures. A wonderful island with some great waves and, in Zed, a top bloke (pictured here courtesy of Cornwall-based snapper Kirstin Prisk). Indeed, Zed gave me the inspiration for Surf Nation, and appears within its at-last-nearly-finished-and-typeset pages. Meanwhile, he sends me this remarkable piece of conjecture on the nature of Hell. Check it out - Hell is certainly not in Barbados, but did this university student find the answer?

The following is apparently an actual question given on a University of Liverpool chemistry final exam. The answer by one student was so profound that his astonished professor shared it with colleagues via the internet, which is why we now have the privilege of enjoying it as well.

Question: Is Hell exothermic [gives off heat] or endothermic [absorbs heat]?

The British Surfing Association wants to hear from you

Check out the British Surfing Association website - the good folk there are conducting a survey on just about everything to do with contemporary surfing in these islands. The more people who click through and complete the survey - found on the BSA's home page - the better for everyone involved in surfing. We might even nail a few thorny issues, eg longboarding v shortboarding, Surftech boards v custom sticks, whether waveskiers should be confined to lakes and rivers...

Photo courtesy of www.kfishsurf.com 

Surftech Demo Centre now open in Sennen Cove

How many times have you anguished over which board to buy only to find - when you eventually dip into your wallet - that you've plumped for the wrong stick? Granted, this won't happen to the experts out there but beginners and intermediate surfers need guidance and, in an ideal world, they need the opportunity to try before they buy. That, though, wouldn't be feasible, would it? Surf shops can't just let people wander off to the sea with whatever gleaming new board they fancy, can they? Wrong. They can, and should, and thanks to Pat Dowling at The Chapel Idne Surf Shop a brave new world of surfboard sales is upon us. Dowling has just taken delivery of about ten quivers' worth of Surftech boards to mark the opening of the new Surftech demo centre, run from the Chapel Idne shop at Sennen Cove.

Surfing's Greatest Misadventures (1)

I've posted before about how little - relative to surfing's popularity - there is in terms of literature about surfing. I'm still not sure of the reasons for this but perhaps the tide is turning. Fresh evidence comes in the form of a book called Surfing's Greatest Misadventures, publised by Casagrande Press and edited by Paul Diamond. I'll post a more detailed review soon, but as it is I've thoroughly enjoyed five of the collection of some 30 surfing tales by surfing journalists, filmmakers, cameramen and watermen. The editing is flawless and the writing - so far - first class. Susan Chaplin's wonderful account of surfing in Mauritius - The Idiot Savant - is my favourite to date. Chaplin' s style is simple, paired back, fluid; it encapsulates beautifully the journey that brings her to Mauritius and, indeed, her life. As a Mauritian called Tiano puts it: C'est un voyage pour cherchez les vagues.

Surfing's obsession with the female derriere

I was just scrolling around a few surfing sites when I thought: I haven't checked out Reef for a while. In fact, I was thinking there's sure to be some shots of Bobby Martinez ripping, so I'll check them out. After all, my morning surf could've been better (in fact, all my surfs could be better) so I need some inspiration. There are indeed plenty of shots of Martinez tearing it up, but my attention was drawn to a little section called 'Miss Reef.' So then I thought, I wonder what Miss Reef looks like? and found myself clicking through. Well, folks, a couple of Miss Reefs are here - low res (after all, this is a family newspaper) - and very nice they are, too. The question is, though, why do we never see their faces? And another one is: has feminism happened to surfing? And yet another is: does this kind of imagery belong in a different genre than surfing advertising?

Should Paula the Surf Mom be given a brand new car?

I've long been an admirer of Paula the Surf Mom but, most unexpectedly, find that my affection for her means that I'm currently delving into the recesses of my knowledge of US law. The reason is this Lincoln ad...

Its v It's

A few press releases from surf companies wend their way to me, as is normal. I flick through sundry surf mags, from here and overseas, as is also normal. In each medium - the press release and the mag - it appears to be normal to confuse 'Its' and 'It's.' For example: Since it's birth in 1970, the Shred-O-Matic 10-metre non-extendable leash has revolutionised surfing. Or: Given that its April, we can expect Las Vegas casinos to start thinking about new surfing posters for their card rooms. Both usages are wrong, and my enjoyment of all things surfing takes a dive when I encounter basic grammar being so callously abused. I'm no expert grammarian, but I do know that 'Its' is possessive, i.e. Its success seems guaranteed given the forthcoming swell, while 'It's' is the third-person present tense of the verb to be, i.e. It's a great relief to find its and it's being used correctly, especially in surfing press releases. Similarly, when running Ads to sell DVDs, don't let the advertisers get away with this: 'DVD's for sale - great offers here!' This wording begs the question - DVD's what for sale?

The Easter Project

I've yet to meet Geordie surfer and snowboarder Joel Gray, and I've only ever spoken to him once over the phone, but the man seems to be doing a lot for British surfing. Having taken several groms to Hawaii last winter, he's just had a fresh bunch over in France, specifically at the bone-crunching beachbreaks around Hossegor. The surfers being put through their paces by Gray and Surf Solutions were Tassy Swallow, Kathleen Spears, Beth Mason, Gwen Spurlock, Lyndon Wake, Toby Donachie, Zak Lawton and Alex Baker. As Gray explains: "Each day we'd have two or three surfs, working on individual and generic performance markers. We'd use heat drills, analysis of moves and video footage. The aim is to improve the technique of the junior surfers and tidy up contest and pressure performance skills."

The Big Man Prevails

Good to see Sam Lamiroy continue last season's excellent form with a win in the opening event of the British Pro Surfers Tour at the Saltrock Open at Croyde last weekend. The Geordie's win is all the more remarkable given that his is not a frame designed for the small surf in which the contest was held. Lamiroy is a big man, one who allowed that I might reasonably describe him as "burly" when writing up last year's O'Neill Highland Open. He's strong and powerful, but despite looking as if he needs surf to be 6ft+ before he'd be happy was able to scotch the opposition at the Saltrock event. Alan Stokes took second but young St Ives ripper Jayce Robinson signalled his intent for this season with an impressive third. Next up on the UK contest scene is an international shindig, with the O'Neill Highland Open returning to Thurso for a week starting on 24 April. This year's 59 Degrees North competition is a 6-star WQS event with a $125,000 prize pool. If the organisers are blessed with last year's pumping surf, we're in for a treat.

Surfer Spotting

Here's Alf Alderson with a new sport. I'm pleased to say that I fall into category 4, albeit that my car was once rather sporty and was never as cool as those pictured. If I'm honest there's a bit of category 2 about me as well (sadly, not the wealthy bit). But anyway, be that as it may. The important question, as Alf says, is this: which car do you drive?

What a glorious Easter! What a shame it was pretty much flat throughout. Still, this gave me the opportunity to enjoy another sport – surfer spotting. Here’s how it goes. You loiter around on the road to the beach, in my case fortunately equipped with a café selling very fine cappuccino (Pebbles Gallery, St. David’s in case you’re interested) and eye up the passing vehicles whose roof-racks are adorned with surfboards. You then categorise as follows:

Stoked in Sennen Cove

It's been a pleasant couple of days' surfing here in the wild west. Small surf - no bigger than a couple of feet on the push - but clean and blessed with gorgeous sunshine. Perfect for my sons, and the elder one, Harry, got his first clean wave two days ago. He said the experience of riding an unbroken wave face was one of "fun and happiness." Eleven-year-olds, I find, can put things very well. As for me, I've been out training with one of the local lifeguards, shaking off the excess weight accrued from months of being sedentary (I've posted before about how writing is bad for one's health). Slowly but surely, after some depressing sessions, surfing is coming back to me, so I'm currently as stoked as my kids. Meanwhile, The Times have kindly allowed me to link to other publications to which I contribute. For those who want to know a little more about my local surf spot, have a look at this, the Independent on Sunday's home page, and click through to 'Travel,' then the piece entitled 'Surfers with Soul: Head for the Wild West' (published yesterday). Meanwhile I'm off to the garden centre in search of virtue and looking forward to another early evening surf with my sons. The shot is of Sennen local Sam Bleakley showing how it's done (regular readers will note that I've put it on the site before - I hope you'll agree that it easily warrants another appearance).

Morocco

Nice to hear from Tom Anderson, author of Riding the Magic Carpet, who recently scored some sweet and rather large surf in Morocco. He, too, is a poker player. I'm not sure how Tom's cards are holding up but I won last night and so am condemned to carry on playing. Meanwhile let's hope a miracle happens and that some swell comes through for the Salt Rock Open.

No More Mr Nice Guy

I've done it. I have, at long last, sent the copy-edited manuscript of THAT DAMN BOOK off. Barring a few tiny things, it's done. I can now emerge from solitary confinement and do things like go for a surf again (and also, pay attention to this blog). But before I do, it's one more game of online poker. And I've decided that tonight, it's all or nothing. Chuck all my online bankroll into a few aggressive sit and goes, and if I'm still up in a few hours, then keep playing poker. And if I lose - well, I guess I'll do some surfing. Just in case the idea of poker seems a little far-fetched, check out the columnists at Flush - I'm the Wannabe Pro.  And so far tonight, it ain't going well (or rather, as a surfer, it's going pretty good)

Surfside Sex

Surfside Sex is the title of a book by George Snyder which was published in 1966. It was about "Surf bums living with savage passions and raw desire." I discovered this thanks to a Taschen book, edited by Jim Heimann, entitled Surfing - Vintage Surfing Graphics kindly given to me by Judy, a long-standing friend of ours, whom Karen and I saw on the weekend. The Taschen book has a variety of beguiling old posters and book covers, of which Surfside Sex is one. Inevitably I couldn't resist a tale of savage passions and raw desire, and so I googled Snyder and Surfside Sex to find out more. On doing so, however, I encountered a rather more visceral world than perhaps even Snyder had imagined in the form of a 1988 film by John Stagliano. Its tagline is: "Where all the surfers hang ten" and its category is apparently "Straight, Feature, Plot Based, Classic." I somehow doubt that the Stagliano film is a version of Snyder's book, and I'm not sure that it's deservedly billed as "Classic." But one thing's for sure: surfploitation, as a literary genre, deserves recognition. I say that not so much with a classic but more of a straight, featureless, non plot-based face.