The music gives me the chills. The surfing looks pretty standard in the death defying sense. What you need to know here is that these three brainiacs thought it would be smart to film their documentary in Ireland in the dead of Winter…

Power of Three chronicles the quest of pro-surfer Tom Lowe and his buddies Fergal Smith and Mickey Smith to surf some unchartered waves. These days, apparently that means going to the frigid coastal waters of the Emerald Isle, for waves that are moving so fast you have to get pulled into them by a Jet Ski (read: no hand paddling, brah).

via The Telegraph

St Ives-based pro-surfer Tom Lowe and friends Fergal Smith and Mickey Smith have spent the past few months squaring up to vicious conditions on Ireland’s wild west coast, filming a stunning new surf movie. They were injured, almost drowned and encountered the kind of bitter weather that Lowe describes as “just stupid”.

In one heart-stopping moment Lowe was forced to dive and release a trapped surfer roped to a crushed board. In another, he suffered the unimaginable pain of a dislocated shoulder when an immense, 15ft tower of curling water collapsed on top of him. All this, during an almost transcendental quest to surf where others simply do not go.

To achieve this, Lowe and his friends took the unusual step of using a power ski to catch waves moving too fast for hand-paddle methods. Under motorised tow, they could match the speeding water – or suffer the consequences for bad timing.

I feel like these guys were offended, if not repulsed, by Step Into Liquid.


Power of Three is being released by Relentless Energy Drink and Carve Magazine on May 6.

wait…





That’s the plot from Point Break. What I meant was…

Ice-Wielding Pro Surfer Allegedly KOs 3 Women

What a completely, unavoidably clickable headline – kudos SbB.





The story goes that pro surfer Chris Ward got in a bar tussle in Mammoth, CA that devolved into him punching out three women and threatening another with a chunk of ice.

Ward maintains his innocence. The bar manager is calling it one of most disturbing displays he has ever seen. And the whole thing allegedly started because one of the women started wearing Ward’s jacket.

Hey brah, I believe it was Chris “I’d never hit a woman but…” Rock who said it best when he said, “If a woman wears your jacket in the club, she’ll probably su….” Well, I guess that’s irrelevant at this point.

Ward is going to be charged – probably assault, battery, drunk and disorderly, and attempting to enact a fatality on someone – yet, he’s still allowed to compete on the surf circuit (???!) I think the surf commish is taking innocent till proven guilty a little too literal in the case of Sub-Zero Ward here.

Um, Swayze played a bank robbing surf ninja in that film, and you’re going to give him weeks to live? Secondary to that, the royalties off starring in a film that’s played 1400 times a year on cable (a 50/50 split, approx. 700 airings each on Spike and TBS) must be pretty lucrative – good enough to pay for high-end cancer treatment, I’d imagine.

Swayze rules (given); but as much as I love Point Break for its intricate plot lines and its determination to portray Gary Busey’s character as the sane one, I’d rather watch Kate Bosworth and Michelle Rodriguez hit the surf in Blue Crush any day (it would be my second favorite surf movie, and Surf Ninjas is a distantly distant third). With that said, we turn our attention to the ASP World Tour and women’s pro surfing. The ladies are competing in Rio De Janeiro this week, and are already in to the quarterfinals of the Billabong Girls Pro Rio. The tournament runs until Sep. 18, with the winner taking home $85,000.

Go to ASPWorldTour.com to learn more, and check out photos from flickr of the Roxy Team:

How’s that for Friday reading?

Moderately Cerebral Bias plays paparazzi on the J. William Leitch esq. book tour. According to MC Bias, the goober riding shotgun in most of the photos is a Deadspin commenteur named Rascalnikov (sp.) or something like that.

Working on my six-word memoir (via Dan Shanoff)

100% Injury Rate, blogger in residence at FanIQ, gives you Horsesurfing. Absurb. Absurb. Absurb.

More aquatic equestrian shenanigans: