Monday Morning Madness

Early Monday morning we woke to a small fun swell out the island, brushed by light offshore winds. We got out there early, to try and get a few before the crowds, and be done in time to watch the Box comp. Due to school holidays, there were a lot of others with the same idea, and at one point it got to about 40-50 guys out there scrapping for waves. Photographer Sam Venn made the wise choice to leave his board at home and capture the craziness on film. You can check out all of his work on his blog at samvennphotography.tumblr.com.
Here are a few of his shots of the morning.

Ando

Damo

Des

Ross

Deano

Jimmy

Des

Emerald Team Dominates Box Event

We would like to extend our biggest CONGRATULATIONS to Ryan Hardy, for his efforts in winning the IBA Box Pro in Margaret River WA yesterday! Hardy was the hometown favourite from the beginning, and dominated throughout the comp, winning every heat he surfed.

We would also like to congratulate team riders Jared Houston and Mark McCarthy, who both surfed extremely well throughout the event. Jared was beaten in the quarter finals by fellow team rider and countryman Mark McCarthy, who in turn was eliminated by team-mate Ryan Hardy in the semi finals.

This is the first time an Emerald Team rider has won a World Tour event, so there were celebrations all round, in the shop, where we had the event showing on the big screen, and as we understand, some very large celebrations went down at the local pub in Margaret River after the event!

So once again, well done to all the boys, who surfed very well in some testing conditions! For a full run-down of the event, check the posts below.

Hardy Crowned King of The Box!

HOMETOWN HERO, RYAN HARDY WINS IBA BOX PRO, MARGARET RIVER
IN HUGE 10-15 FT SURF  “War at Sea”
Margaret River, WA, Australia (Wednesday, April 20, 2011): Margaret River local, Ryan Hardy (WA, AUS) has conquered bodyboarding’s finest and some of the craziest conditions Mother Nature could produce to claim the second event on the 2011 IBA World Tour, the IBA Box Pro.

In wild and dangerous five-metre plus waves, 31 year-old Hardy defeated Brazil’s Magno Oliveira (Guarapari) in a 30-minute final, earning himself 2,000 valuable Grand Slam Series ratings points and second place on the IBA World Ratings heading into event three scheduled for Arica, Chile beginning May 20th.

Hardy choked back tears as he accepted his trophy on the presentation dais in front of his wife, Leah and newborn son, Oliver, while friends and fellow Margaret River locals, cheered the most prestigious win of his career.

“It means so much to win at my home break and with your friends and family and everyone here from my hometown, it’s the biggest win of my career by far. To get the conditions we have and to be able to win is just incredible, it’s a dream come true,” said Hardy.

Hardy did not drop a heat the entire event, and admitted 20 years of surfing the break was the major factor in his win, particularly on a day where riders were faced with giant waves that threatened to close out the entire bay from Margaret River’s Surfers Point, to the Box itself.

“I could see the guys who hadn’t surfed out there much were getting pulled out of position. Knowing the way the water moved around on the reef was a huge advantage. When a wave breaks at the Box, it’s much more

Day 2 - IBA Box Pro

Margaret River, WA, Australia (Monday, April 18, 2011): Just eight riders remain in contention for event number two on the International BodyBoard World Tour, The Box Pro, with quarter-final placings being decided today in heaving four-to-six feet (two-metre) waves.

Ryan Hardy

Mark McCarthy

 Local Ryan Hardy (Margaret River, WA), reigning Men’s IBA World Tour champion Amaury Lavernhe (REU) and multiple Men’s IBA World Tour champion, Guilherme Tamega (BRA) were among the stand-outs on a day that saw blood lost to the reef and at least one board broken in two.
Former two-time IBA world champion Damien King (Port Macquarie, NSW, AUS) received medical attention for gashes to his face after being driven head-first into the reef just moments into his heat versus Mark McCarthy (ZAF), Dave Winchester (AUS) and Joe Clarke (AUS).

The 32 year-old was desperately chasing a win to solidify a Round 4 berth and gave it everything he had when the rogue wave appeared.

“It (the wave) came through in the first five or 10 seconds of the heat and I could see it was hitting wide, but I thought it could be a good one so I thought ‘I’ll go for it’,” explained King.

Damian King

“I backdoored it and I hit my face on the bottom faster than you can blink. I just got smashed, I hit real hard. I’m just lucky I didn’t hit my teeth. I knew I needed to win that heat to stay in the comp so I just kept my focus and stayed out there. You can’t get rattled when that sort of stuff happens, you need to expect it somewhere like the Box. Unfortunately things didn’t go my way today.”

Damian King received cuts to his face early in his heat

South African, Jared Houston (ZAF), found himself in a unique situation; the 21 year-old had his board split

IBA Box Pro - Lay Day 2

This morning looked promising on the forecasts for a start to proceedings at the IBA Box Pro, the second event on this year's revamped GSS World Tour. The swell had risen, but due to the swell's 20 second period, waves were very few and far between. A few of the boys were sent out early in the morning to do a mock 35 minute heat, just to see how many waves would get ridden. It just so happened that the guys who were sent out there were Emerald team riders Mark McCarthy & Jared Houston, alongside 2 x World Champ Jeff Hubbard and TV's Underbelly star Diarmid Heidenreich, who also rides for us here at Emerald! In the end it turned out that the waves were not quite consistent enough to run the event.
Below are the shots released by the IBA press team of the morning's action. Thanks to Sacha Specker for doing the photo work for us!

Jared Houston launches a tight ARS during today's Box free-surf

Jeff Hubbard sitting deep on one of the day's bigger waves

Diarmid Heidenreich snavels a fun one from the big names

Mark McCarthy soops into the biggest wave of the morning before the event was called off this morning

Hubb describes conditions to fellow competitor Ryan Hardy, and tour manager Terry McKenna

Jerry eyes off the oncoming section as Jeff Hubbard cheers him on

Ryan Hardy and defending World Champ Amaury Laverhne discuss the conditions with Tour Manager Terry McKenna

 Conditions look good for a start to the competition tomorrow morning, so keep an eye open, the call will be made at 7am Perth time (9am EST). You can watch the action on www.ibaworldtour.com/live or on the RedbullTV website, or also you can catch the event live on Fuel TV on Foxtel/Austar. This should be a great event full of throaty barrels and big airs, so make sure you can tune in at some stage to catch the action.

New Shop Pics

For all those people out there who haven't been lucky enough to come in to the new Emerald store, we have finally managed to get a few decent shots of the place! The shop is basically finished now, and we are super happy with how its turned out. We hope you all like it too! Here you go!!!

All pics courtesy of Mitch Pearson.

Fluidzone's Ryan Hardy Interview - Part 2

This is Part 2 of The Ryan Hardy Interview by Doc. For Part 1, click here. All photos by Reeflex/Shannon Stent. You can see more pics of Hardy in action on the Fluidzone page.

I'm going to ask some questions about two of your sponsors Reeflex and Unite. Some of the kids make the easy write-off & go "Oh, they just say good things about their sponsors cos they're employed by them" and things like that. Before I get into the questions themselves, what would you say to people who don't know Johnny Barker (Reeflex) and Joel Taylor (Unite)?
Joel and Johnny both have deep bodyboarding blood running through their veins and have been involved for a long time in their own bodyboarding scenes respectively. They each arrived to the establishment of their companies through different circumstances and in different eras but they both possess the same motivation - earn a living making quality products and giving life to the sport that possesses them! It feels good riding for both Unite and Reeflex because I relate very well with Joel and Johnny, the passion they have for the sport and the motivation they have to succeed and evolve with the sport.

Reeflex - cutting edge wetsuits from a bloke dedicated to bodyboarding. First up - is there any inferiority in these wetsuits to the better known stand-up brands they are often compared to?
I've just signed up to Reeflex at a good time, as they have just bought out their best suits to date. The material, fit, warmth and stretchiness is definitely up to standard of any Billabong suit I wore back in the day. Which is a huge achievement for a bodyboarding brand that's only a few years into its development.

The chest zip suits are making their way into the bodyboarding scene. The chest zip is relatively new to the wetsuit market and is at the cutting edge of wetsuit design. How do you find these new units and what do you see as the pros and any cons?
I've been wearing mostly the chest zip wetties lately and loving them. I was a little sceptical at first that it might be annoying to get on or that the zip/bulky chest bit might get in the way...but having used them for a coupla months now, I could definitely say any scepticism has gone out the window. They're real easy to slip into

Hardy gets The Daily Frame!

Our man in the west has scored Fluidzone's Daily Frame for today, Sunday the 10th April 2011. Every day, the guys at fluidzone.com coose an epic shot from the recent sessions around the country and show it on their home page as "The Daily Frame"

Check out more shots of Hardy in his Fluidzone interview below!!

Fluidzone's Ryan Hardy Interview - Part 1

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More from "That Swell"

We just received a few more pics from our good mate Steve Jones from the Wednesday and Thursday the 23rd & 24th of March out the Island. The first 3 are the Wednesday, and the second 3 are from the Thursday.

Thanks heaps to Steve Jones for the pics!!!

Mark McCarthy

Josh Kaihe

Josh Kaihe

Rosco

Billy Danzey

Rosco

New Team Rider - RYAN HARDY!!!!!!!!

Thats right, we have Hardballs!! Hardy is the newest addition to the rapidly improving team lineup for us here at Emerald. Hardy has way to many career achievements to list here, but I can say he has graced the cover of Riptide and Movement more than once, one a bunch of Riptide Peer Polls, won the Shark Island Challenge twice, won the Pipeline Pro, been in the top 16 in the World Tour Rankings for a loooooong time, and been labelled the current generation's style king! Basically, Hardy is the man, and we are super stoked to have him on board with Emerald. Ryan currently also rides for VS Bodyboards, Reeflex Wetsuits, Creatures of Leisure leashes, Unite Clothing and Churchill Fins

Below are a couple of shots of the man himself in action.

On his way to winning the 2010 Shark Island Challenge

Movement Mag Issue 8 Cover

This is the type of surfing that Hardy is known for - super clean tech skills and style in all wave conditions

New Team Rider - MARK McCARTHY

Yes! Yet another big name rider has joined the ever expanding Emerald team! This time, its South African Mark "Boetie" McCarthy. Mark has finished in the top 10 on the IBA World Tour for the past 5 years in a row. Mark won the final event on the IBA World Tour in 2010 at Confital in the Canary Islands. He also started this year with an impressive 5th place in the opening event at the Pipeline Pro in Hawaii. You can follow Mark's movements on his blog at www.followyourboetie.com
You will be able to see Mark once again on this year's new GSS World Tour, as he attempts to gain that covented World Title. The companies that are supporting his Title shot are Power Balance Bands, Lizzard Clothing, with a big announcement on a new board sponsor coming in the very near future!

Check out Mark in action below.

Massive air forward at the notorious El Fronton

Celebrations ensue after Mark won the 2010 Confital event in the Canary Islands

Mark during the recent amazing swell at Shark Island

New Riptide!

The new Riptide mag arrived this week, and the Emerald boys were quite well represented! new team rider Mark "Wattsy" Watts appeared in 3 double page spreads.

Jared Houston also graced one side of the poster, along with Cronulla local Andrew Lester.

We also announced our new major team rider - RYAN HARDY!!!! Check out the Setup section on page 40 to see if you can win his complete setup!!

Come in-store and grab your copy before they sell out!

Viking's "Newskeg"

The boys from Zion have their new vid The Viking premiering this weekend! The vid is such an epic tale, the big fella Koots and a few of the others made the news!!! Check out this clip below to see how the boys reacted when they saw themselves on TV!!

NEWSKEG!!! from FLAMES YATES on Vimeo.

Don't forget to show up to the premiere, 6pm Anita's Theater, Thirroul, tomorrow night! Tickets available at Emerald, SWS and at the door! See you there!!!