By Phil Jarratt
A few months back cinematographer Frothin’ Tim Bonython jetted into the Noosa Festival of Surfing to give us a taste of his long-awaited Big Wave Project, a labour of love that has broken his heart and nearly killed him more than once over five years of shooting the biggest waves ever ridden from close proximity.
Tim managed to squeeze us in between a lightning dash to Nazare, Portugal, for a swell the size of a block of flats, and a month in the edit suite putting the finishing touches to his big wave epic, and, alongside our own surf-cine veteran Greg Huglin, he gave us a jaw-dropping preview of what was to come.
Well, what was to come has now arrived, and Tim will present Big Wave Project for one show only at the Noosa Cinemas on Saturday night after a sell-out tour of southern states. If you’ve never experienced a Frothin’ Tim presentation, book now, if not sooner! In the old style of surfing’s roadshow men, Tim calls the action from an on-stage microphone, often getting so swept up in the humongous wipeout or miraculous emergence from a deep-throated barrel that you forget that he’s seen the action a hundred times before. It’s impossible not to share his stoke.
I got Tim on the phone a few days ago at an airport transit stop after full houses in Melbourne and Geelong. He was still buzzing. “Mate, people are just getting carried away by the emotion of watching these guys putting everything on the line to ride the biggest waves ever. One lady was in tears last night.”
So you’ve been warned. Take along some Kleenex as well as your Jaffas and your vocal chords on Saturday. Tickets available at www.ASMF.net.au
The Wrecks are back
Meanwhile, over the hill (and I do mean over the hill) at Halse Lodge, competitors in the Noosa Malibu Club’s annual geriatric knees-up, the Noosa Wrecks and Relics Contest, will be wheeling their zimmer frames up the driveway for a more sedate evening. The Noosa National Surfing Reserve will be screening the surfboard pioneers documentary, Men of Wood and Foam, for those who haven’t caught up with it yet, as well as the short feature, Cup of Tea With God, which explains what the Noosa Surfing Reserve is all about.
Now in its 13th year, the Wrecks and Relics, which is exclusively for the over-50s, has become one of the hottest tickets on the surfing calendar, with its age divisions – all the way up to 70 plus – filling to overflowing long before contest weekend. What began as a little local get-together back in the early years of the century, has morphed into a global (well, trans-Tasman at least) battle for surfing supremacy between some of the gnarliest old bastards who ever stood on foam. With not many good years ahead, these silver surfers (your humble correspondent included) will stop at nothing to get one last trophy for the mantelpiece.
Despite this, or perhaps because of it, I have to say it’s the event I most look forward to competing in each year, and will move heaven and earth to ensure that I’m in Noosa for it. The main reason is the spirit of bonhomie that’s surrounded it from the get-go. Even former champs who’ve been paddling you up the point or snaking you all their competitive careers, do so now with a smile from ear to ear, their approach to their surfing, and to their sundowners, finally imbued with the enthusiasm and good graces that come only with advanced age.
The Wrecks – not just the old blokes, but old gals too, and a handful of oceanic sweepers – will be disporting themselves from around 7am at a beach near you, hopefully First Point, right through the weekend, so come along and give them a cheer, and if you’re in the water, give them a wide berth.
If you hear a manic cackle and a crackly old voice yell, “old fart coming through”, be very afraid.
FOOTNOTE: I try not to make this column too much like the obituary page, but we lost another legend of our sport and culture, just days after the passing of John Severson. Jack O’Neill is usually credited with inventing the neoprene wetsuit. The story is a bit more complex than that, but one thing is for sure: generations of cold water surfers have had plenty of reasons to be thankful since Jack first started selling his primitive suits in San Francisco and Santa Cruz from 1952. The O’Neill company went on to become an industry leader. Jack always looked like a bit of a pirate, but never more so than after his surfboard ricocheted back at him while he was testing son Pat’s leg-rope designs in the 1970s and took his left eye out. He died last weekend surrounded by family, with the Pacific lapping the deck of the Santa Cruz beach house he had lived in for 60 years. He was 94.
