“Do They Want Us To Snap These Surfboards For Free?!?”

Welcome back, Greenroomers.

This Week In The Greenroom we saw Californian surfers rejoicing, at the news that they now get their boards destroyed by airlines, free of charge!

In France, the Quikky Pro got underway, with a few members of the CT taking innovation to new heights during the Red Bull AirBorne air reverse  contest. We can only hope to one day see competitors trying these manoeuvres in a CT heat…

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves!

“I was in the competitors area during Filipe’s heat when this set loomed up on the horizon,” Kolohe Andino explained, after claiming he couldn’t hear the final horn sound against Pat G. “Filipe must not have seen it, because Ricardo let rip with this banshee-like whistle! And, well, that’s when the tinnitus kicked in.”

“My hearing was so bad in the heat, I couldn’t even understand the beach announcers—it was like they were speaking in another language or something.”

United Airlines has announced it will no longer be charging surfers $100-$200 to have the noses and/or tails of their boards snapped off. The airline has officially dropped the excess fees like a baggage handler drops coffin bags at the end of a 10 hour shift.

The announcement was applauded by surfers who can now use the $200 saved on the excess baggage to pay the ding repair guy to rush to fix the crease in the brand new boards they carefully had shaped just for this trip. 

Conversely, the Baggage Handlers Union of America are up in arms with the decision. 

A baggage handler and member of the union who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal: “How do these corporate bigwigs expect us to feed our family’s now? Do they want us to snap these surfboards for free?!? It takes years of hard work and training to get a 6 foot surfboard into a space only 5 foot 5 wide.”

The union’s unofficial stance? “From now on we will be disregarding all “fragile” and “top load only” signs until this issue is rectified.”

This week, Stab released the identity of this year’s Stab In The Dark surfer: 3x world champion Mick Fanning.

This coincided awkwardly with GQ releasing images from their “Getting Dressed In The Dark” shoot, also starring the 3x World Champ.  

French spectators were left confused on Monday as a number of World Tour surfers were witnessed doing air reverse’s in contest jerseys…

But it wasn’t Round 1 of the Quiksilver Pro.

The confusion came about during the WSL’s inaugural air contest, Red Bull Airborne, which featured multiple world tour surfers, along with other invitees, surfing in a similar way they would in, say, non-elimination Round 1—air-reversing their way to heat wins.

The winner, Yago Dora, won the final with 2 (admittedlycorked out) air-reverses (“540’s” if you speak Cote), narrowly edging out Griffin Colapinto, who came very close to beating Yago with—you guessed it—two air reverses in the final.

Next year, the WSL plans to hold a Red Bull Airborne event in New York alongside the World Longboard Tour, to avoid such confusion. 

This week, a North Shore surfer made a critical error, that was fortunately caught on film.

The unidentified but self-proclaimed “hellman” waxed his board but forgot to wax the tops of his feet as well.

The technique, which became popular at reef breaks the world over after being mentioned by the commentary team 36 times during last years J Bay world tour contest—is rumoured to make your feet less slippery while surfing, while making your socks really hard to put on after a session.