From Floating Poos To Mushroom Clouds To Anti-Communist World Champs

You might have already heard that 2024 is a big year in politics, with national elections due to be held for about half the world’s population. Voting is one way to express your democratic freedom. Another is staging a protest. In spite of surfing being considered an inherently selfish and largely pointless act, the sport’s public profile and popular culture cut through has long been harnessed in the name of causes ranging from nuclear tests to human rights — to freesurfing’s undue prominence.  

These are eight of the most prominent protests in surf history.

Let Them Eat Yellowcake, 1995 
Pro Surfers vs South Pacific Nuclear Tests

Ten years after French secret agents bombed and sunk Greenpeace boat Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour* killing a crewmember, France restarted nuclear weapons tests in the South Pacific atolls of Mururoa and Fangataufa, 700 miles southeast of Tahiti.

While condemnation was widespread in the region and internationally, with public opinion in Australia and New Zealand about 95% against, boycotts against French wine and cheeses in the Antipodes seemed to be invoking little more in response than a Gallic shrug. In July 1995, as Barton Lynch packed his boardbag of Brothers Nielsens to head to France for the tour’s Euro leg, he also stuffed in dozens of bright yellow Mambo t-shirts. On the ground in France, Maurice Cole was behind mobilising protests in Hossegor, leading a clandestine forest community of van dwellers to stage protests at comp venues in Biarritz and Seignosse. At the Gotcha Lacanau Pro, BL handed out the custom Mambo tees that had “Let Them Eat Yellowcake” printed on the front (yellowcake U02 is powder form of uranium when removed from its ore).

“We’d go into town with pretty much the whole tour wearing em” BL said recently. “Letting them know what Australians, and pro surfers in general felt about what was happening in the South Pacific.” While it’s unlikely pro surfer tees moved the needle much, it was still a relatively radical public foray into international enviro-politics by touring professionals. 

Result: Amid widespread international condemnation, France finally concluded all South Pacific nuclear tests Dec ‘96. 

*If you’ve access to BBC iPlayer, don’t miss the fab 3 part doco series ‘Death In The South Pacific’ 

Brit Surfers Dirty Protest, 1989 
Giant inflatable poos bring fight for clean seas to the capital 

Surfing at St Agnes in SW England, Chris Hines emerged from a duckdive with a panty liner stuck to the back of his head (“The wings were like ears”) and a human shit squished between his chest and his wax.

It was at that point that Surfers Against Sewage was born.

Sick of surfing in raw untreated sewage both figuratively and literally, inital SAS’ campaigns for clean bathing waters weren’t as welcomed as in some coastal towns as you might think. With beach tourism the main economic earner, upstart surfers drawing attention to the fact that the coastal waters were often swirling in brown clouds of human effluent was seen as bad for business. Undeterred, SAS used surfing’s booming popularity, combined with their own PR savvy to meld a distinctly British mad cap brand of eco activism. Rather than come off as preachy or sanctimonious (think Sting saving the Amazon), SAS showed a penchant for the common touch.

One ad appealed directly to burgeoning lad culture with “You and your mates aren’t going to stop eating curries…” while surfers in wetsuits and gas masks and inflatable brown turds become iconic images outside seats of power in London and Brussels. Surfers Against Sewage growing public popularity and national campaigns against plastic pollution even saw it named as a recipient for donations instead of royal wedding presents for Haz & Megs.  

Result: Previously hard won gains in water quality directives have seen a recent legislative backslide, the UK’s Brexit freedoms now including the right to swim in its own shit. 

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Fight The Tower, 2023
Tahitian locals unite against permanent Teahupo’o judging platform 

If there’s one ecological cause the broader international surf community needs little persuading to get behind, it’s threats to a living coral reef with world class waves breaking off it, particularly if that threat comes from the heavy hand of outside interests.

The proposed construction of a new, permanent aluminium tower for the Olympics (and pro events beyond) to replace the wooden one erected and then dismantled for CT events over the past two decades provoked a staunch reaction from Teahupo’o locals, chiefly at the new tower requiring extensive drilling into the fragile reef for its foundations. Matahi Drollet led a march from the marina to the point at Teahupo’o in protest, while a petition gained over 200,000 signatures by late 2023.

“It’s not okay to just watch people from outside coming into our playground, the place where we go fish, where we get our food from, and just fuck up everything for two days of a contest,” said Drollet. In December 2023 the ISA, a key stakeholder in Olympic surfing, also announced they were opposed to the construction of the new tower, offering remote tech alternatives to the use of a tower at all.  While initial plans to reduce the size of the tower were given short shrift by the campaign, as of April 2024 it seemed some form of acceptable compromise had been reached, with local photographer Tim McKenna reporting “The tower project was reduced to the bare minimum in order to have the least impact possible on the environment…the area where the tower is built has very little coral.”

Result: A smaller, temporary aluminium tower, erected and dismantled for events, was in place ahead of the 2024 Tahiti CT event. 

Surfers Against Apartheid, 1985
World title contenders boycott South Africa tour events.

Professional surfing was one of the few international sports (alongside golf) still maintaining fixtures in apartheid-era South Africa in the 1980’s. The Olympics had banned it since 1964, FIFA expelled SA in ‘76, tennis’ Davis Cup in ‘79, while overseas cricketers who played in lucrative ‘rebel tours’ in South Africa were banned from international selection.

So in a rare foray into international politics, in 1985, Tom Carroll, Martin Potter (who grew up in SA), Tom Curren, and Cheyne Horan started boycotting the South Africa leg in what Carroll — announcing his decision at Bells — described as “A basic humanitarian stand.” Durban’s Shaun Tomson, whose father Ernie organised the Gunston 500, responded along familiar don’t-mix-sport-and-politics lines, asking, “What’s next in surfing’s newly found political conscience? Maybe we won’t go to the USA because we object to American involvement in Central America? Maybe we don’t go to France in objection to the Socialist government? Maybe we won’t go to England because we abhor Thatcher’s treatment of the IRA?” The protesters were fined by the ASP for their boycott (at the time, other sports were penalising competitors for going to SA, rather than the other way around).

A decade later, former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke said of Carroll’s stand that he knew of “No example in the history of Australian sport where a champion has been prepared to put principles so manifestly in front of his or her own interests.”

Result: While the ASP continued to hold events in South Africa throughout the apartheid era, Curren (85, 86, 90) and Potter (‘89) won their World Titles in spite of forgoing points from the SA events. 

Tour Pros Not Trestles Bros, 1990
Jeff Booth’s anti-freesurf magazine coverage manifesto    

“False images are being created out of second-rate surfers at the expense of high-ranked professionals” wrote Jeff Booth in a politely worded, if somewhat tone deaf letter to Surfer and Surfing magazines, co-signed by almost the entire ASP Top 44. “It’s quite unfair to dedicate yourself to the sport, train hard and travel around the world, only to pick up a magazine and see a guy who spent his summer at Trestles on the cover and centerspread.”

The guy who’d spent his summer at Trestles was of course, Christian Fletcher, whose brand of skate-inspired aerial surfing was a radical departure from the multiple windscreen wipers to the beach type fare that was garnering results at most tour stops outside Hawaii. Surfer Mag editor Matt Warshaw published a reply along the lines of letting the readers decide what and who they wanted to see covered, and later considered the Tour establishment’s protest as the moment that legitimised Fletcher’s anti-hero credentials.

“In surf terms, no child in history was born to a better life. Three-generation surfing family plus a beachfront house and all the gear, trips, media, sponsors, adulation, you can imagine. So what was Christian rebelling against, exactly? When he was 16, his mom made him grow his hair out; I remember Christian complaining about that. It occurs to me now that Fletcher should in fact give thanks daily to Hardman and Cairns and all the other surf-establishment strawmen that he tilted against all those years. Without them, the rebelliousness would have come down to his mom and the haircut.”

Result: Photogenic freesurfers continued to attract ever more magazine (and surf movie) coverage, whilst many of the letter’s co-signees were off tour within a few seasons.

The Cut Uprising, 2022
30 CT surfers petition against the mid-season cut

As revolutionary manifestos go, this one was relatively mild mannered. A letter submitted 11th April 2022 to WSL by tour surfers ahead of Margaret River concluded, “The mid year cut has made being a CT surfer much harder from a mental health and financial standpoint and we do not see it as a sustainable path forward,” with no mention of potential follow up action like a strike (although at the time, Stab reported that a boycott had indeed been discussed as an option by tour surfers’ union WPS).

The 30 signatories (59% of the mens and womens tour rosters) included pros of various status from the lower order to World Champs like Carissa & Italo, but not the likes of Kelly, John John, Gabe, Steph & Tyler. Then WSL CEO Erik Logan responded publicly via a lengthy letter April 14th, which could be summarised by his line, “It is not possible to make a change, even if we wanted to (which we don’t)”. His letter also invited surfers and their guests to a “candid robust question and answer session” at Margaret River. However robust those exchanges turned out to be, days later, twelve men and seven women from the CT were duly sent to Snapper Rocks to commence their Challenger Series campaigns. 

Result: The mid season cut remains.

World Champ Boycotts China, 2011 
Cori Schumacher stands alone against country’s human rights record  

When the ASP announced that instead of deciding 2011 longboard world champions in a one off event (in Biarritz, France) as had been the case for a number of years, a second event had been added to schedule in Hainan Island, China, competitors welcomed the move.

All except one that is — reigning, three-time ASP Women’s Longboard World Champion, Cori Schumacher.

While the inaugural Swatch Girls Pro China offer was a highly attractive one for generally underfunded longboard competitors; the venue was a tropical left pointbreak, while all flights, (five star) hotel accommodation and meal costs were covered, Schumacher explained her decision to boycott in an article she wrote in The Guardian. “Foreign businesses seeking to take advantage of China’s booming economy and its growing middle class have a moral duty and responsibility to actively participate in improving the socio-political environment of China’s citizens… So if their intention is simply to take advantage of the economic opportunities there, then it must be understood that they will be tacit partners of, and complicit with, those who enact violations of the universal human rights of Chinese citizens.”

Schumacher never competed for world titles again, becoming an elected council member for Carlsbad, California 2016-2021, and is currently the political director of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Result: While Schumacher’s Guardian article hoped “those in my surfing community who feel similarly will voice their opinion” not many did. Major international events continued to run in Hainan over the next decade until a QS5000 in January 2020, shortly before the pandemic. 

Paddle Outs Thwart Big Oil, 2019
Surf community sees off oil exploration in the Great Australian Bight

Sean Doherty joked he was planning to barricade himself into the booth on finals day at the Portugal CT in October 2013 and go “full pirate radio.” With the WSL soon taking over from the ASP and Seano, a commentary stalwart for several years,  seemingly not part of the new administration’s future plans, he vowed to go out swinging. As it turns out, Kai Otton’s victory was broadcast both expertly and peacefully, and it would be a few years before Sean would really kick up a fuss. When he did, in new roles for Patagonia and Surfrider in Australia, it was over something much bigger.

Norway, the country that has given the world the paper clip, the cheese slice, Db boardbags and the oil platform, was planning on setting up several of the latter in deep waters of the Great Australian Bight via part state owned energy giant, Equinor. Alongside South Australian surfer Heath Joske, Sean mobilised the surf community in Australia to reject the plans to drill off one of the most pristine coastal zones on the planet, Joske hand delivering 300 letters of protest to Equinor’s AGM in Oslo in May 2019. Fifty paddle outs took place simultaneously on one day of mass action November 2019 around Oz with a major social media impact, in what Sean called the  “Largest collective coastal environmental rally ever seen in Australia, the whole nation paddling out to save the Great Australian Bight.”

Result: Despite being granted permission in Dec 2019, Equinor dropped all plans for exploratory drilling in Feb 2020 citing ‘economic reasons’.

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