Tracks

As surfers our whole lives evolve around the quest to utilise the power of a renewable energy source – waves. Indeed, the fundamental buzz from surfing is derived from being propelled by a force of nature. We didn’t have to create or manufacture it,

The surfing world delivered its equivalent of a standing ovation when Caitlin Simmers won the 2024 Pipe Masters. To claim surfing’s most coveted event, the diminutive Californian, who’s barely a nudge over fifty kg’s in a wet jersey, had surfed Pipe

Maybe it’s the fact that most the waves of the world have been discovered, or maybe it’s because surfers like Mason Ho and Dylan Graves and Ben Gravy are seeking out the joyous and bizarre anomalies of wave riding. I mean really, Ben’s effort of havi

Despite being 95% blind Matt Formston claims that for him there is no better feeling than carving across the face of a solid wave “It’s the most pleasurable thing that I do. So if I’m walking through a car park, I roll my ankle, there’s like kids run

One of the first shapers to appear in Tracks in the early 70s, Geoff McCoy was as a titan of surfboard design for over half a century. McCoy originally trained as a pattern maker, a meticulous process in which patterns were hand made out of blocks of

Long before John John Florence and Torren Martyn set sail, George Greenough took viewers on a transcendent journey aboard his yacht, the Morning Light. The film ‘Crystal Voyager’ charts that experience from the construction of the Morning Light to it

This much we’ve garnered in broken English from Paulo, our affable Portuguese driver. The contest is sponsored by a restaurant and we must go there for lunch. At Paulo’s insistence we dump our bags at the stylish Evolution Hotel, which over-looks the

Webby wants to turn to back. His repaired bike tyre is leaking air again, and he says he doesn’t want another ordeal like the one we’ve just had. I suspect, though, there is a little more to it than that. I mean, we’re out a long way from anything we

There is a certain way Matt Biolos looks at a surfboard. It’s the same way he looks at life. As a perfect opportunity to eliminate the bullshit. And he doesn’t just hold a surfboard, he grabs it. He spins it. Weighs it. Slaps it as if he wants to see

The ocean. The big blue beating heart of our planet. As Australians, it is core to our very being. We paddle on it, camp by it, swim, and dive in it. Every day we are awed by its beauty, soothed by its rhythms, nourished by its bounty. For the millio

Rain falling on the tin roof, wind howling through the valley, trees tapping on the window with every gust… I feel the pull of the offshore breeze. It’s a call that’s hard to resist, even in the chill of a two-degree sunrise surf. Bundling up in 4mm

In 2012, Australia’s network of marine protected areas covered over 3,000,000 square kilometres of ocean. But in 2018, the Australian government downgraded protections to these marine ecosystems by more than 30%, opening huge areas to offshore oil an

I started having concerns about wind farms when I realised I didn’t know much about them. Turning endless free wind into cheap reliable energy seemed a smart modern idea, something that most Australians would eventually embrace. After 10 years of pol

Surfers for Climate polled their members to find out their level of support for the shift to renewables generally and to see what they thought about offshore wind specifically. The results from this survey showed an astounding 98% level of support fo

When is enough, enough? In life, everything has its limits – jeans fray and the buttons give way; wetsuits leak like a sieve one last winter morning before meeting a recycling bin; the compressions in your surfboard result in it feeling like a moon l

Here’s an interesting statistic for you. According to Dr Saul Griffith at Rewiring Australia, Australia’s 10 million households are responsible for around 42% of our domestic carbon emissions, 33.5% of which is attributed to home energy and personal

We aren’t here to whip people into a frenzy about climate change (although, it’s totally worth being frenzied about). Neither are we about stopping traffic in order to make an activist position on the need for urgent action (even though it really is

They're dumping shit in the sea. I live at Whale Beach. In the Municipality of Warringah. Most of this area isn't sewered. The government in it’s wisdom has plans to supply this essential service. It’s going to collect the collective excretia and dum

My family adopted a stray cat when I was a kid. We found him emaciated, begging for scraps to eat on our back deck. Within a year, though, he had become obese, with his belly swinging back and forth as he waddled around the house. I remember the vete

As a kid surfer, Peter Howe, learned to read the wind and watch for the southerly swell at The Farm near his hometown south of Wollongong. As a singer-songwriter he wrote our most memorable surfing lyrics with his close-up imagery of a magic morning

Uluwatu, Bali 1973 Having travelled to Bali in August 1971, playing the grommet for the filming of ‘Morning of the Earth’, I was blessed to surf Uluwatu as an undiscovered jewel. The unusual visual surrounds, the people and their customs, the sounds,

SINCE ITS FIRST APPEARANCE IN 2018, THE SURF LAKES WAVE POOL, A PROTOTYPE LOCATED NEAR YEPPOON IN QUEENSLAND, HAS TORTURED US WITH ENDLESS ONLINE CLIPS OF STARTLINGLY FUN LOOKING LINEUPS. It is a bizarre juxtaposition of surreal, steam-punkish machin