Sponsor Drops, Board Changes, Drug Use And The Location Of The Next Airborne Event

Welcome back to Gossip Girl, your occasional bout of grown men exposing whispers from carparks across the globe. 

In this edition we have a few lost sponsors, a change of craft(s), a bit about drugs and their tests, and the location of the next WSL x Red Bull’s next Airborne Event.

Here are the juicy bits between the ribs of surf, right now.

Vissla drops one of their many long haired lanky team riders.

In a long list of Vissla’s hair farming gentlemen who ride surfboards with aplomb, it turns out the V no longer has room for South Africa’s Brendon Gibbens.

Brendon’s had a rough streak as of late; he injured his knee on the Waco ramp, forcing him to pull out of Stab High and be replaced by Nathan Fletcher. At the same event, with his knee on ice, Beeg got a phone call from a close friend/filmer/manager who broke the news that Vissla would not be renewing his contract in 2019.

Surfer loses sponsor, goes to college.

The very handsome, articulate, and talented Los Angeles surfer, Dillon Perillo, has been dropped by Rip Curl. He is currently in the self-described post-surf era of his career. Instead of chasing the big-monied contracts of the early twenty-tens, Dillon’s decided to go to college. He is currently taking classes at Santa Monica City College and will presumably be moving onto a 4-year university to obtain a Bachelor’s Degree in some field.

Knowledge, and student debt, is power.

A new board is the best Candy.

The Fantastic Mr. Hayden Cox churns out a damn fine surfboard. And, although the 7’0 Hypto Krypto gets the man a lot of flak for manufacturing ‘kook’ boards overseas, most of the Stab staff has at least one Haydenshapes in their quiver. Most notably the Holy Grail.

In a similar fashion to Jordy Smith leaving his longtime board builder, Channel Islands, to test drive a new harem of boards, Creed McTaggart is slipping away from longtime board builder, Hayden, to do much of the same. Whether he’ll sign with another shaper or leave his door open like a back-to-the-hotel invite after a WASH show is to be determined.

Drugs, moderation, and WSL wee tests.

We have a firm belief that drugs and alcohol are fun but should only be used in moderation. As a whole, not a single soul at this magazine has ever been caught with their pants down (so to say) doing anything that would be deemed dishonorable while using or combining the two.

We also know that surfers as a whole, like us, would never be caught in an aforementioned pants downing incident while using illicit substances, and therefore believe that all surfers–WSL oriented or not–should be able to use drugs and alcohol as they please, insisting on the fact that never a surfer has used a drug or an alcohol in anything but moderation.

The World Surf League says otherwise and drug tests for such. This is something that is used rarely, and is mostly to catch the use of PEDs (see: Neco Padaratz). Although, substances like marijuana and cocaine also can get a surfer on probation from the tour.

The Red Bull Airborne (soon to be) Tour, however, will implement no testing for surfers who use illicit substances responsibly and in consistent moderation. If they did, they’d lose half their tour. Because, isn’t going airborne all about getting high anyway?

Oh, and the next Airborne event will be in New York.

Until next time xoxo,

GG