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Outside magazine, June 2001 Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Life Isn't Fair
Eat. Sleep. Shoot virgin curls. Collect a heap of prize money. For the pro surfers assembled at the first Boat Trip Challenge in Indonesia's Mentawai Islands, paradise can be such a bitch.
By Rob Story

the "girls" on the Nusa Dewata

WE THE PEOPLE who commonly wear long pants appreciate a sheltered rear end. That is, we prefer to keep our assorted rumps, cabooses, booties, and derrieres fully clothed when outdoors or engaged in public activities. Regrettably, such modesty is not shared by those aboard the Mangalui Ndulu, an 82-foot sloop crawling with all-but-bare-assed surfers. Like most surfers these days, they're wearing long, loose trunks tied low on the hips. Whenever one of them bends to wax his board or climb below- decks, his shorts slip inexorably, indecently south. At this very moment, 28-year-old Shane Beschen of Hawaii, ranked tenth on the international pro circuit, is leaning over a rail to scope the water, his exposed bottom shining white in the equatorial sun.

Beschen's bald tush is a metaphor of sorts, a jarring reminder that surfing's not what it used to be. Once steeped in tradition and romance, the sport has been suffering cultural amnesia of late, at least on the competitive level. Surfers have adopted the same big-mouthed, baggy-pantsed, bastardized hip-hop attitude of snow- and skateboarders. Waves are their half-pipes, the means by which they score their gnarly rides. The aesthetics of the sea, of pristine beaches and exotic locales, don't seem as big a part of the equation anymore.

Case in point: Beschen and his comrades aboard the Mangalui. They've come to Indonesia for most of June to compete in something called the OP Pro/Surfer Boat Trip Challenge. As surfing events go, it's the first of its kind, most significantly because it doesn't take place on a beach. Rather, competitors travel by boat from surf break to surf break, eliminating entirely the need to set foot on land, paddle out to a wave, or otherwise waste time that could be spent riding. There are no shrieking PA systems, 20-foot-tall inflatable Hawaiian Tropic bottles, or bleachers full of cheering surf rats. Fans can catch it all on the Internet, but the live audience is limited to a few fishermen and several thousand coconuts.

And unlike other surfing competitions, the field is tiny. Only ten surfers have been invited, six men and four women, chosen for their professional stature and wave-riding creativity. In addition to Beschen, there's reigning world champ Mark Occhilupo, 34, of Australia; burly Hawaiian vet Sunny Garcia, 31; American Timmy Curran, 23, ranked sixth in the world; and the Irons brothers, Andy, 21, and Bruce, 20, also from the States, whose signature aerial maneuvers are being hailed as surfing's Next Big Thing. The women's contest includes Australians Serena Brooke, 24, and Layne Beachley, 27, the world's top-ranked female surfer, and Rochelle Ballard, 29, and Megan Abubo, 22, of Hawaii. All of them will be duking it out for one of two winner-take-all purses. The top woman gets $37,500, while the winning man takes home the fattest payout in competitive surfing history: $65,000. (Despite stabs at egalitarianism, the sport remains as economically sexist as ever.) And here's the clincher: All ten surfers, along with 45 assorted photographers, event organizers, judges, and crew, live together aboard four boats. For two weeks, or however long it takes to find rideable waves and complete the competition, they will troll the Mentawai Islands, a cluster of 70 atolls, reefs, and palm-choked isles about a hundred miles west of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. This quest for perfect surf, while fine in theory, means that the pros must bunk next to their rivals in very narrow cabins. Things could turn nasty. "It can be a feral pack on a boat trip if the recipe is right," says Australian surfing photographer Martin Tullemans. "People are at each other's throats. One doesn't like another's politics. Someone else farts too much."

The boats are all filled past capacity. The female competitors share a cramped room with a photographer, the captain, his seven-months-pregnant wife, and a delirious, shivering crewman suffering from a bad case of malaria. Over on the boys' boat, eight beach towels and 19 pairs of trunks hang on the rails, and surfboards lay scattered about. Dinghies with outboard motors rattle back and forth, ferrying surfers, judges, satellite phones, and cases of Bintang beer.

Naturally, the organizers are hoping this inaugural Boat Trip Challenge will set a new standard for competitive surfing. "The future of competition is now taking a small cadre of super-hot surfers to cutting-edge surf," says Matt George, a former pro who designed the contest format. "This isn't some half-assed all-star game."

And here, as testament, is Shane Beschen, leaning farther over the rail, revealing another inch of surfer's crack. A hundred yards out, a few of his competitors are practicing, carving elegant parabolas across the green waves. Beschen gazes at them with the casual interest of a tourist at SeaWorld. He seems unaware that he's part of a sports revolution. "I'm cruising," he says laconically. "I'm just here to have fun."

THE CONTEST ARMADA DEPARTED from Padang, a port city on mainland Sumatra. At the harbor, the group split up according to status and boarded the four boats. The judges and organizers beelined for the Indies Trader II, the lead yacht and unquestionably the cushiest, with two-person cabins and a 40-inch TV. The female pros got the Nusa Dewata, the smallest boat, even dinkier than the media boat housing several photographers and the event's Web site manager. Serena Brooke's bunk was right next to the WC. "I'll always know when someone's gotta go," she said ruefully.

Despite the seaworthiness of the Mangalui, the men were not pleased. All six were accustomed to the luxury hotel rooms typically doled out during land-based contests. By contrast, their single cabin looked like a basement rec room: four narrow bunks alongside a conversation pit with foam cushions that folded over to form another few beds for the three-man film crew covering the event. "When they saw that we'd be sleeping in a hold as tight as the Amistad, the pros freaked," says Matt George.

Before the boats had even left Padang Harbor, the lads had lodged a protest, informing officials on the Indies Trader II that they wanted to switch boats. Martin Daly, the Australian captain who oversaw the fleet, said he wouldn't consider the request until the next day, then ordered the boats to set sail. The verdict was in. George plopped his head on his shaving kit, while Timmy Curran curled up beneath his guitar case to block out the others' snores.

There was a time when top-drawer surfers reveled in squalor. In the sixties and seventies, you attained stoke by following your gypsy soul to the ends of the earth, chasing down remote waves as the seeker dudes did in The Endless Summer. Since moving water remains nature's ultimate ephemera, the search yielded both soaring triumphs and deep disappointments. Still, surfers always came back with stories to tell around the bonfire on Huntington Beach.

But that was when surfing thrived only on the beach, on the literal fringe of American culture. The sport went mainstream long ago. Since the early eighties, marketers have eagerly exploited surfing's coolness quotient. California icon Corky Carroll, the first surfer ever to receive endorsements, got the ball rolling by appearing in a series of popular Miller Lite ads. Ocean Pacific corduroy shorts and Hawaiian-print "jams" (the "OP" in the OP Pro/Surfer Boat Trip Challenge) may have seemed like short-term fads, but they actually laid the foundation for America's ongoing appetite for beach culture. With every pimply teenager from Des Moines to Woonsocket sporting shiny Billabong board shorts and a Quiksilver guayabera shirt, it's all too clear that surfing is no longer a cult activity. The surf-fashion industry earns a staggering $1 billion in annual revenue, the royalties getting cycled to the pros in California and Hawaii. "When you're a millionaire at 22 like [some of] these guys are," says George, "you relate more to Puffy Combs than to your waterman predecessors. The result is that judges have to kowtow to young guys with 'fuck-you' money." Guys like Sunny Garcia, who won $80,000 in a three-week period in 2000 and who holds the record in the Association of Surfing Professionals for most fines levied for flipping-off judges.

Older surf competitors call the current generation "the Walkman pros," for their habit of donning headphones, cranking Korn, and all but ignoring the foreign cultures they're exposed to on the contest circuit. "Before they can fully mature, these physically dynamic people get influenced by a surf culture that's relentlessly trying to turn them into simpletons," says George. "They're sold on ease, ease, ease."

And now, dammit, they wanted a better boat. When the flotilla regrouped at dawn, word of the Mangalui quasi mutiny spread fast. Two of the judges, esteemed surf veterans Mark Richards and Chris Malloy, were, in the words of event organizer Paul Taublieb, "offended at spoiled athletes exercising their desire to get pampered." Serena Brooke just shrugged. "Whatever," she said. "The men are used to getting the best of everything, so they want the best boat. Girls don't get paid as much, so we're used to roughing it." Megan Abubo, ranked seventh on the women's circuit, succinctly sums up the feelings of the majority by calling her male counterparts "fuckin' pussies."

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