I love Christmas and all its traditions, but there’s one tradition I abhor. At 11am on Boxing Day the local surfers and lifeguards of Portreath strip off to their bare essentials, exposing pasty, flabby winter bodies, hoon across the beach and plunge into the frigid waters of the North Atlantic.
This is a tradition that has been going on years, since the surf club was founded in the fifties, and now happens at beaches all over the country.
Angels with dirty faces
Tucked away at the top of a hill near Gwenver beach, Skewjacks was the definitive 1970s surf camp.
Something old, something new
Steve Croft of Laminations talks asymmetric shapes, sustainable surfboards, and Chops Lascelles.
The reluctant ambassador
Tyler Hatzikian on nose-riding, refining longboard design and his reluctance to take the limelight.
Liberia’s new future
Liberia has been devastated by more than a decade of civil war, but surfing might offer future peace.
Reef encounters
No group combines hardcore surf experience with hard science better than the team at ASR.
Siestas & Olas
Dan Wozniak on surf, sand and culture, and getting Tom Wegener into a g-string for ‘Siestas & Olas’.
