Ecto team first on scene at UrbnSurf. WaW Releases a new hand-plane. DMC’s new revolutionary fins hit the market. Corey Sains at Pipeline Contest and ”The Bodysurf Podcast” goes live for the first time.
Welcome to the new series ‘The Body-surfer’s Corner’ where you can catch up with the latest news from the crazy world of body-surfing. In this month’s edition we look back at some of the most exciting happenings in Australia in 2020. So on this glorious Autumn day relax and enjoy the ride.
Back in February 2018, it was announced that a new inland surf park would be built in Tullamarine, Melbourne. 18 months later, this dream came to life and today this spectacular MCG sized lagoon is producing an astounding 1000 waves per hour for surf lovers across the globe.
The whole wave experience is customisable, so they can serve up waves for beginners, or pros on-demand. So, if you’re after a perfect set of waves after a tough day at work they’ve absolutely got you covered.
But it was not only the surfers that had their eyes on the perfect machine made barrels. Passionate South Coast body-surfer and the founder of the Ecto Hand-planes Chris Anderson, was the first in Australia to gather his team and take on the URBNSURF. Now the stage is set for their second visit, the EctoPoolParty on the 5th of may, which will gather body-surfer around Australia for a 4 hour long session at urbnsurf.
“The idea for the EctoPoolParty came from going to urbnsurf on the 2nd day it opened on Jan 06 2020 with the Ecto team. We were the first crew in Australia to formally body-surf a wave pool and test our craft on such waves. We had such an epic time I wanted to share the experience more broadly in the body-surfing community and also have the opportunity to tweak the waves to barrel for longer to improve the experience for all. A true win-win. I prefer expression sessions where people can bring what they want and do what they want, be creative, have fun, let loose. This is opposed to other competitive formats that cast judgement to impose winners and losers and create marketable drama which is essence is a bit lame. People can expect to get pitted beyond recognition, meet bodysurfers from all around Australia and overall have an epic Saturday night. We’ve got speakers in the mix so you’ll get barreled to banging beats.
Ecto Hand-planes founder Chris Anderson on his first experience at URBNSURF and the upcoming “Ecto-pool party”
Looking forward to it! Thanks to everyone who booked!“
We managed to briefly speak to Justin Spittle (@Hypto) who is one of the most experienced and perhaps most knowledgeable body-surfer from the Sydney’s South Coast. He was part of the first Ecto expedition that visited Urbnsurf back on the 8th of January
“It was awesome to be one of the first in Australia to visit Urbnsurf. It was all teed up by Chris, from Ecto Hand-planes. It was sort of a last minute call but all times worked out and the Ecto team made their way down to Melbourne. The experience was crazy. We watched the pool on the intermediate setting for a bit before our time slot and all of us knew that it would be the advanced setting that ill create better shape of a wave for body-surfing. In the water it was tough as much as it was fun. There were lot’s of waves coming through and whilst we all managed to get waves we were sucking air on the swim. In one hour I think we moved about 5 km’s. Than the Beast mode arrived. It started sucking a lot harder, I wasn’t quiet prepared and went over the falls, sliding my ass on the concrete pool. Ron Dog drew some blood as he slammed his head on the bottom of the pool, but old school hard as nails went out for the next session and he was fine. Once you became aware of how the wave works it becomes easier.”
In other news, the body-surfing revolutionist, innovator, environmentalist and the founder of the WAW Hand-planes has released a new fully recycled hand-plane named the ‘Sunset’ which complements his WAW Bad-fish series.
We are so stoked to finally be able to produce a red BadFish. After over a year of trials using different mixes and recipes, we finally got it just right and we are able to produce the new ‘Sunset’ line. The ocean waste that goes into these boards is largely bottle caps, buckets, fishing gear and toys. all found washed up on the shores of the Great Barrier Reef. Lets see more waves and less plastic, YEW!”
Rikki Gilbey commenting on the release of New Hand-Plane
On the fins market DMC fins are the ones to keep the revolution going. After the release of the Graphic Series mid 2019, they have gone a step further and brought a completely new design to the market. A brand new DMC Elite Max are designed to to give your swim stroke, leg strength and kick action the best chance at developing potential. Elite Max has to be the most comfortable in the market and surprisingly their size has not compromised the power that these fins generate. These fins have proven ideal for both swimming and body-surfing and come at a reasonable price of $129 AUD.
In the world of podcasts, the sovereign rule of Tim & Owey’s ‘The Bodysurf Podcast’ continues. In 2020, the boys have really turned it up a notch and even added some new gadgets to enhance listeners experience.
“We recently got a new podcast mixing desk (the Rode caster Pro) and it made recording the podcast so much easier. Once we recorded a few and got the hang of it we decided to go live. We love radio so it was so much fun taking calls and broadcasting without a safety net, and it was also fun having our ugly mugs on camera for the entire body-surfing community to see. Now hopefully listeners will know which one is Tim and which one is Owey.”
Host and founder of the Body-surf Podcast Timmy Renky
Australian super talent Corey Sains along with his fellow experienced country men Dean Jeaz competed in the 2020 Pipeline Body-surf Classic. The competition was fierce with the likes of Mike Stewart, Mark Cunningham and even the legendary surfer Kelly Slater, charging the notorious break.
In the end, it was Mike Stewart that took the comfortable win in the final with an overall score of 16.67. Arthur Picard followed with 11.33 and third place went to Chris Kalima with a combo of 8.17 pts.
Kelly Slater marginally missed out of the top 8 final series finishing 9th. Known well to Australian body-surfing community through the Whomp off Australia, Dane Torres and Mark Cunningham finished in a respectable 11th and 12th position.
Dean Jezard, a member of East Sydney Body-surfers finished in 23rd position and Corey Sains of Bate Bay Body-Bashers finished 25th.
Perhaps the biggest upset of the tournament was the Brazilian big wave body-surfer Kalani Lattanzi who finished in 56th place.
Kalani Lattanzi has recently won the Puerto Escondido Body-surfing Contest and is known for his outrageous body-surfing action at Nazare.
Stay tuned for the next month’s edition of Bodysurfer’s Corner.
Water U Know 
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