Boarding House: North Shore

[Wheel-Nut]

Has anyone seen this show on The WB? It's about surfing and communal living! There is this dude on the show, Sunny something or other who is a legend surfer. The reason I bring him up is because throughout the show this guy goes around busting people in the face if they rub him wrong. What an ass!!

LINK (http://www.thewb.com/Shows/WithFeedback/0,9310,116409,00.html)

[RacinM3]

Sunny Garcia.

Weak show, but the surfing shots they get are insane.

[oddlycalm]

The living situation with the house is contrived for television by Mark Barnett, the same guy that does produces 'Survivor'. They are looking for drama, so they put a couple locals in a house full of haoles (Pidgin for foreigner or white people) and during a time when there are a lot of haoles and Barneys (people in the water than lack the proper experience) on the North Shore. This is a pretty good recipe for trouble, and one where a Hawaiian (local boy) will have a short fuse.

Back in the 70's there was something close to open warfare between the locals and the dozens of Australians that began showing up for the winter. A lot of haole heads got busted, some seriously. Eventually, some of the Ozzies proved themselves as watermen and learned to show respect for the locals, but the situation is still not what you would call calm during the winter invasion.

Sunny Garcia is fairly typical of many Hawaiians (male locals) from the West side of Oahu. Most tourist guidebooks and rental car maps have clear warnings on them to prevent non-locals from going to the West side at all, and there is often trouble in places like Walanae and Nanakuli when haoles show up. In this area about all you hear spoken is Pidgin, and haoles stand out like a sore thumb.

We never hear about it on the mainland, but there is still much bitterness in the islands over the US coup that removed the queen. The subesequent land grab by large US corporations like Dole, and by the US military, along with the systematic erradication of Hawaiian culture and language that followed the coup remain very sore subjects. Hence the 'locals only' attitude. There is also a small but very persistant Hawaiian independence movement that is unlikely to ever go away.

oc

[RaceGrrl]

Originally posted by Wheel-Nut
...throughout the show this guy goes around busting people in the face if they rub him wrong.
LINK (http://www.thewb.com/Shows/WithFeedback/0,9310,116409,00.html)

Can we send him to Indy to visit TG, Mikey and AJ?

[racer2c]

This thread made me realize that I've never watched a program on the WB.

[oddlycalm]

All the contest stuff and North Shore winter frenzy is minor background noise to me. The really interesting stuff for me is the outer reef tow-in riding where a jetski/waverider is used to generate enough speed to allow people to surf really huge giants. Whether at Jaws, or 100 miles from any land on the Cortez Bank, this is where the really amazing riding is going on.

This is clearly dangerous, and even experienced people have been killed. North Shore veteran Mark Foo was killed at Mavericks in California in a horrible wipeout/hold-down incident. A hold-down is where succesive waves break before the swimmer can reach the surface to get air. From personal experience, I can tell you that this is terrifying, and is considered the biggest danger.

Some early examples (http://www.hawaiisportsmodels.com/sierra/Tow-in_Surfing.htm)

More recent examples (http://towsurfer.com/photo.asp)

The limitation now that prevents people from riding some of the 100ft. + waves is the 35mph physical limit of the conventional surfboard. Laird Hamilton has developed a hydrofoil board that gets the rider up above the surface chop and allows speeds of over 50mph.

Laird Hamilton's hydrofoil board (http://community.webshots.com/photo/12393226/12393413FxUWinMHvZ)

[Wheel-Nut]

OC,

I saw this on Dateline the other night.

LINK (http://www.msnbc.com/news/928322.asp)

Truely crazy sh ite!!

[oddlycalm]

Yep, I saw that Cortez Banks story on Dateline. They didn't mention it, but that was during the winter of 2000-2001. Regardless, they had some decent footage. I have seen a video of the trip, but had neveer seen the aerial footage. Spooky stuff out there 100 miles from land. The main characteristic was the shear speed and power of the waves due to the fact that they are in the open ocean. Greenwater surfing has come a long way in a short time. In 5yrs we will probably see 100 ft. waves ridden.

oc