wavelength surf mag_5lives_May_191_2010

5 lives Feature: MAY 2010 wavelengthmag.co.uk

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Photo: Greg Martin

Photo: TIm Nunn

Photo: Greg Martin

Photo: TIm Nunn

Photo: Coutesy of Waveriders

W O R D S T I M N U N N / G R E G M A R T I N PAT K I E R A N I N T E RV I E W C H R I S N E L S O N

Surfing is quite unique amongst sports, it really is something that can exist without any hype around it, it needs no crowds or leagues to legitimize it, it needs no winner or looser, just the act is enough to satisfy millions.

But within these millions of anonymous participants are lives and stories all connected with the ocean. It’s these stories that give surfing its soul, whether it is journeys of discovery, lives saved, lifestyles formed or simply young men and women striving for excellence, it gives another dimension to surfing.

We like to talk to people like this here at The ‘Length and this issue we’ve lined up five very diverse characters. Pat Kieran is one of the fathers of surfing on the North Shore of Scotland, he moved up there to work at Dounreay but

settled as much because of the waves as splitting atoms.

Seb Smart is a frothing grom from the very opposite end of the island, the Sennen lad is one of our best up and coming surfers. Richie Fitzgerald has been at the heart of surfing in Ireland for over two decades, he’s seen it rise in popularity, made his living from it and stared in movies about it. Surfing has helped Jess Ferrin find a path in life, which she now shares with disadvantaged young women. Meanwhile Aussie charger Rick Willmett left the tropical pleasantness of the Gold Coast to find his own personal Nirvana in the barren bog lands of Caithness. All the stories are compelling insights into five different surfing lives, lives which will inspire, uplift and just make you want to go surfing more.

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Clockwise from left: Pat Kieran Photo: Tim Nunn; Allan Hayes, Frank Paul, Kevin Rankin, Pat Kieran. This board was the ‘Rocket Fish’ - Pat’s 175cc Honda is in the background Photo: Courtesy of Pat; Thurso, Pat’s cottage is the one next to the digger Photo: Tim Nunn; Pat’s Cottage Photo: Courtesy of Pat

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hat have you got here?” asks the motorcycle cop, giving a cold stare from the hard shoulder. It is a chill, bleak winters afternoon, shrouded in that special kind of grey light that blankets the sky as storm clouds gather. The driving wind is howling off the North Sea with a biting ferocity. Propped on its stand, the blue metallic Honda 175 ticks as it cools. The folded tubular steel framework is unlike any side-car the policeman had seen traversing these Highland highways - it doesn’t even have a wheel. And what is this white wing-like object, secured only by the deadly elasticity of multicoloured bungee straps?

“It’s a surfboard rack,” comes the reply in broad scouse. “A mate of mine made it.” The officer turns his harsh stare on the small rider. He is in his early twenties, sporting a dark moustache while a basin helmet tries in vain to suppress a mass of curls. Pat Kieran looks away from the long arm of the law towards his bike. He isn’t surprised he’s been stopped, in fact he knew it was inevitable from the moment the white police Norton came into view on the dual carriageway. The officer raises his eyebrows, blows out a lungful of air and passes his judgement. “Alright then son, off you go.” Pat springs onto the little Honda, kick starts the engine and weaves off into the mercy of the cross wind before the motorcycle cop has a chance to change his mind.

“I deserved to get pulled over, that thing was bloody lethal back then,” says Pat, thinking back to the mid seventies, smiling as he takes a sip of his Dark Island Stout. Sitting illuminated in the light of the peat fire, it’s hard to imagine he hasn’t always inhabited these northern most fringes of the British mainland. “I was born and raised in Liverpool,” he explains “but I left there in 1976, to come up here to work at Dounreay.” As an electrical engineering 042

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student, a lengthy work placement was an essential part of the course, and being a keen surfer, Pat knew exactly where he wanted to be – southwest England. “I’d spent a couple of summers surfing down near Westward Ho!, so that was my first choice of placement. But I didn’t get my first choice, or my second choice. It was my third choice, Dounreay that came up, so I thought ‘Why not, bit of adventure!’ I’d seen this article in a magazine – before Wavelength existed, more a type written newsletter – and there was a really grainy picture, I think it was of Farr Beach. There was a right hander breaking off the cliffs, and the article was called ‘Land of The Midnight Sun’, it was about surfing through the night and I thought ‘That sounds really romantic – I’ll give that a go.’”

So, in the summer of 1976, Pat packed his bags, loaded up his motorbike and started the long drive north into the unknown. “God Almighty, it was five hundred miles away. It’s a long, long way. I take it for granted now – I do it in a day, but back then… I came through so much weather, I went through sun, wind, rain and hail, all in one journey. I remember stopping just north of Glasgow to warm myself up because my hands were just frozen. I put my gloved hands on the engine and couldn’t feel anything, so I took my gloves off and put my hands on the engine casing and I could still only just get my hands warm.

It was so cold the engine wasn’t really warming up enough.” Pat arrived for a long hot summer that is spoken of in wistful tones to this day. “I came up here for six months and that summer was fantastic – the weather was just brilliant. I seem to remember being in the water every night.” For most in the UK, the summer of ’76 means one thing: a heat wave that’s seared onto the national psyche. For Pat that summer was the beginning of a life long love affair with a region and its waves – a summer that would change the course of his life forever.

“Thurso East was a great place to live,” says Pat. “It

was a great community, still is. It’s still got that ‘Hippy’ sort of feeling about it.” Pat’s house was an open house – the place for visiting surfers to crash.

“I’d get mates coming up to stay with me and folk coming up just for the weekend. I never locked the door. I had the place for about three or four years and I never locked the door once. When I moved out I picked up the key to hand it back to the landlord and it left this big key shaped hole in the dust.” Even when away, the hospitality continued. “I think I was in Liverpool seeing my mother, and I came back to a note on the kitchen table from Nigel Semmens and a couple of other guys from Cornwall. They’d legged it up here, surfed for about four hours, slept in my place. Didn’t ask – didn’t need to. Surfed in the morning, then went back down south and left a note. Fantastic, just come up for a long weekend.” The barn next door became Pat’s shaping bay as he furnished the local scene with his hand sculpted designs. “I built about a dozen boards there,” he explains. “If you go up in the bedroom, you can still see surfboard shaped resin marks on the floor. God knows how I got away with it. They should have thrown me out. I took the shaped blanks into the spare bedroom so I could get a bit of temperature to do the resin and fibreglass. I built them just for the cost of building them. I did single fins, a couple of twin fins, and I built a Stinger.” Pat’s boards, Selkie Sticks, bore elaborate artwork, like Japanese dragons or swirling fish. “I remember this guy in town once asked me ‘You that bloke that shapes them surfboards out at Thurso East?’ I said ‘Yeah’ and he replied, ‘Could you shape me a shed?’”

Chris Nelson is currently working on ‘Cold Water Souls: In Search of Surfing’s Cold Water Pioneers’, to be published in September 2010. coldwatersouls.com

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IN THE SUMMER OF 1976, PAT PACKED HIS BAGS, LOADED UP HIS MOTORBIKE AND STARTED THE LONG DRIVE NORTH INTO THE UNKNOWN

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Seb Smart Photo: Greg Martin

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ello, my name is Sebastian Stanley Smart. I’m 17 years old and I live in Sennen near Land’s End. I got into surfing at about eight years old; it was impossible for me not to as there is nothing else for a kid to do in Sennen.

Before that I bodyboarded a bit, but I was always in the sea with my two brothers, Sam and Lew, from about four years old. They were a huge influence on me and as the youngest, they had to look after me, so I spent a lot of my youth chilling out with them and their older mates.

It was a similar story with skating, both my bros were into it, and both were quite good, so I followed in their footsteps and got a skateboard to piss around on and to get from A to B. My best friend at the time, Christian Jackson, was a good surfer and skater and his dad built a little skate park up on his farm for us to skate and trash. Those days were awesome. I think it’s really weird that Sennen hasn’t got a skate park. Kids keep vandalizing and skating on peoples property because they’ve got nowhere else to go, and yet the council wont allow one to be built, it’s so annoying and pathetic. If they just agreed to have a proper park, the problems would vanish.

My grandfather was a tugboat skipper on the Thames and played football for the West Ham boys team. That was before he joined the Merchant Navy. My Dad was the same, crazy about football and then joined the Navy when he was 16.

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Both of them were really hard workers, which anyone who knows me would find hard to believe seeing as I’m so slack. I do have a hard working side to me though, but it takes a bloody lot to get it out! My mum’s dad was a coal miner, as well as being a keen artist. That might be where I get it from because I draw loads of crazy shit when I’m bored, real twisted characters, I love it. Sadly I never got to meet him as he died in a coalmine that collapsed. My grandmother, who I have met a few times, is an absolute legend and has a strong northern accent. I love talking to her because she sounds so funny and she’s a lovely old person. I wouldn’t want to piss her off though.

Once, she threatened to whip me with a belt because I was annoying her so much. I had the gift of youth and agility on my side, but I wouldn’t rely on that too much anymore!

I WAS ALWAYS IN THE SEA WITH MY TWO BROTHERS, SAM AND LEW, FROM ABOUT FOUR YEARS OLD

I always hated school. I loved seeing my mates and hanging out with some of the hot girls, but in the end it wasn’t for me and I was just a zombie during my last couple of years. I really didn’t want to be there, I’d pretend to listen in class, but just fall asleep discreetly. My hatred for some of the teachers was off the scale too, I’m not sure why, but that knocked me off the course of trying to do well and I just wanted to be in the sea, surfing, I day-dreamed about it everyday.

beating, but when it comes to huge waves, I begin to get a bit scared. I’m also into surfing wedges, or anything with a good section for an air or a few fin releases. I’m starting to get my airs sorted now. I managed to land a few Rodeo flips in Sumatra, but not smoothly, and I can do Gorkin flips at times if I really base a session on it. Having said that, I couldn’t really give any tips on landing airs, it’s all intuitive when it comes to stuff like that and I guess everyone has different techniques to suit their styles. If I was forced to give some advice I’d say keep low, try and stay over your board, and maintain a lot of speed.

I love to surf heavy waves, waves of consequence, but not too big. I don’t mind getting ravished on a reef at all, but I do mind hold-downs. I can take a

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Seb Smart busting out during a feral trip to Indo Photo: Jacob Cockle

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ichard Fitzgerald has been at the heart of surfing in the North West of Ireland since what seems like the beginning of time. He was first Irish surfer a lot of us Brits would have ever met and has been an ambassador for the country ever since.

So as we hadn’t had much contact of late we thought it was high time to find out where Irish surfing was at, his big wave surfing, his role in feature films and his love of everything Star Wars.

So Richie, having been in the Irish surf scene since it really started taking off, do you think it has developed in a healthy way, or are there now overcrowding issues, which I know a lot of Irish surfers were worried about in the early days?

Well I have been lucky enough to have started surfing in the mid-80’s and I guess until the mid-90’s it was Ireland’s golden era of surfing, new waves were being ridden all the time and the popularity of the sport was still pretty small where you knew almost all the faces in the water.

As the 90’s progressed Ireland got more popular as a surfing destination from the outside in. Due to a whole range of reasons, exposure in general and surfing media, economic growth, domestic prosperity and the growth of the surf industry here, shops, schools etc led to more and more British, European, Aussie, Kiwi, American and South African surfers coming here. Ireland is still a really popular destination for foreign surfers, but I feel since 2000 the trend has been getting busier from the inside out, the amount of Irish people taking to the water has totally eclipsed overseas surfers in the line up.

With better infrastructure over the last 20 years our surf rich West and NW coast has become very accessible from the bigger urban areas in the east, creating a large amount of weekend city surfers from every conceivable background; student, young professions, school kids, families etc to mention a few.

I think there has been, is and always will be growing pains with overcrowding and localism here. We are not immune or unique to these issues they exist everywhere else in the world where population co-exists near a surfing coastline. On the plus side I think the last decade has been overwhelmingly good for Irish surfing, with more Irish people taking to the water the awareness of surfing has risen to benefit the commercial side of the sport and raise its profile, but it has also helped the environmental side too. With more surfers in the country (estimated at 150 thousand) local and national government have copped onto the sellable image of surfing and also the need for sustainability and protection of our great natural asset. Surfers are generally respectful of the coastal environment and want to see it left in a pristine condition which is music to my ears.

Tell me about WaveRiders, what was it like working on a full on feature film?

You know WaveRiders from concept to fruition was a six year marathon 046

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Ritchie Fitzgerald on his favourite home reef Photo: Aaron Pierce

sometimes a much procrastinated project for all the core people involved, mainly Joel Conroy (director), Margo Harkin (Producer) Gabe and Lauren Davies and I. It’s funny for me now to think back to when Joel and I sat in my house in August 2003 and trashed out this embryonic idea. Parts of it changed and morphed from the original concept a million times as all these things do, especially when the financers came on board. Overall it was a great experience to work on a domestic surf documentary that got general public and main stream exposure and appeal in cinemas and media here, the UK and now internationally. Personally I didn’t and haven’t let it change the way I am at all,

and Gabe attended it and previously the night WaveRiders won best documentary at the Surfers Poll awards in California. So we have had a lot of high profile red carpet stuff which can be some fun and definitely completely different to anything I have experienced before.

So what about the big wave scene over there, you fully into towing Mullaghmore or would you prefer a perfect six foot session at the Peak?

I do really enjoy the tow in days, they say ‘youth is wasted on the young’ which may be true, but at 35 I am probably more focused, wiser and fitter for it than I was at the outset 10 years ago, especially the last three years I am in the best condition

I THINK THE LAST DECADE HAS BEEN OVERWHELMINGLY GOOD FOR IRISH SURFING but it’s something I am proud to have been involved in, it’s not every day you get to shoot a surf film with your mates and have it go to the big screen.

Do you now have to do full on red carpet walks with Gabe and Joel wherever it is premiered?

We did have to do a lot of premiers and media stuff from TV chat shows to newspapers, magazine, internet and radio, I’d say at this stage literally hundreds. Unfortunately I couldn’t make the US promo tour this March but Joel

physically and mentally for big surf. If months go by without a serious big day I am good with that and I really enjoy the standard regular days of surf here because the quality of surf breaks in the Bundoran area is world class. I have always had a lot of other interests outside of surfing, in sport and otherwise, so when the surf isn’t on I don’t get frustrated at all I just concentrate on one of my other interests until the surf pumps again. So it’s working really well for me at the moment.

Tell us a bit about the new surf coaching venture, sounds interesting?

My family have been in the surf business in Bundoran for 20 years, we opened our surf shop SurfWorld in 1990 which was the first in the North West, we also ran the first surf school from 1990-1996. My brother and I lost interest in running the surf school after the initial 6 years but the shop kept going strong. A couple of years ago I decided to start a surf academy (Surf Coach Ireland) to cater to beginnerintermediate and high end lessons and coaching. Especially concentrating on personalised small groups and private lessons. It has gone exceptionally well for me and complements our surf shop as well, so it is a win/win situation. There is always the temptation to expand greatly but then I’d run the risk of losing the personal element to the academy and the essence of what it’s all about would change, so I am building it slowly and steadily.

Finally, the most important question of all, do you still have a room in your house for the Star Wars collection, or have you had to buy a new house yet?

Haha! You know in one of my earlier answers I mentioned ‘other interests’ and yes Sci-Fi collection and Star Wars most specifically is one of my interests, Thank God I am married now and avoid all the ’40 Year Old Virgin’ slagings. The room has got bigger to bursting point by now, but I don’t think my wife would be all that happy if we were forced to buy a new house for my intergalactic collectibles, but you never know ‘the force is strong in that room’.

Jess Ferin Photo: Greg Martin

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at in a greasy spoon café in her hometown of Penzance, amidst people ordering their full English and instant coffee, Jess has an air of calmness about her, despite a recent run of bad luck. She has the dubious honour of making the second page of this morning’s local paper, which is being devoured cover to cover along with bubble and squeak by a man in a high vis jacket. “A GREY Peugeot 306 car was stolen from Leskinnick Terrace and later located in Treassowe Road. The keys were used but have not been recovered and an Adams surfboard was taken.” The story masks the worrying truth that the keys were taken when Jess’s house was burgled as she slept. This however, along with recently being given notice from her landlord, does not seem to faze Jess, who has a philosophical outlook beyond her 23 years, the type of perspective that is gained with coming through harder times.

Born in London, Jess moved down to

Cornwall with her family when she was seven years old. Her parents split up when she was much younger, leaving her mum to bring her up single-handedly, but with her dad also living in Penzance, Jess did get to see him regularly. Despite the tranquillity of living by the coast, Jess managed to find herself getting into trouble from an early age, and by the time she was 12 years old she had gone off the rails, been in trouble with the police and was close to being expelled from school. Luckily, Jess was given a second chance and the opportunity to try surfing, one of the activities options added to the curriculum by a secondary school fortunate enough to be only a couple of miles from Sennen beach. “That was a real turning point for me,” Jess recalls, “I fell in love with surfing there and then and decided it was all I wanted to do. I saved up and bought my first board off a friend… it was a massive gun!”

With her gun stashed at a friend’s house in Sennen, Jess took the opportunity to jump on a bus from Penzance every time

the temptation of getting on the lash came up. To the shock of some of her teachers, her grades shot up and soon, on the new path she had chosen, Jess was getting A’s and making plans for further education. In her late teens and having finished college, Jess got a job at a restaurant overlooking the waves at Sennen and put her mind to saving enough money to go on a surf trip.

Determined as ever, she ended up saving enough to spend a year travelling around the world by herself and surfing places like Indo and Australia.

After a brief stint living and surfing on the west coast of Ireland, Jess moved back to Penzance about two years ago and decided to set up her own business. “A lot of girls feel too intimidated to learn to surf in what is a pretty macho, male dominated environment. I wanted to set up a surf school for girls with female instructors that would encourage confidence in women trying the sport for the first time.” With some help from the non-profit surf foundation Ground Swell

CIC, Jess got the boards and suits to set up her school, but was soon contacted by the YWCA, a leading charity working with the most disadvantaged women in England and Wales, to see if she might be interested in a project they were starting.

The idea behind ‘Curl Power’ is to give the sort of girls that the YWCA work with, the opportunity to try surfing under the guidance of a female instructor. With her love of surfing, ability to teach and empathy with some of the girls’ issues, Jess was the perfect choice for the project. “It’s amazing to see the girls catching their first waves. I know that many of them would never have considered trying surfing without this project. I just hope that surfing can have as much of a positive affect on their lives as it did on mine.”

Jess will be running ‘Sirens’ surf clubs for young women at several Cornish beaches this year. Her aim is to avoid any social exclusion with little or no charge for the clubs and mini-buses to and from the beach.

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Rick, slotted at Thurso East Photo: Tim Nunn

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ravelers are not uncommon in the wilds of northern Scotland.

No longer are the sacred rights at Thurso East a distant vision and the surrounding slabs now attract as much interest. But travelers come and travelers go in all wave rich areas of the world, but few stick around, especially in frigid climates like Scotland’s. Rick Willmett though is one, who has, and along with his girlfriend Jen he calls the north coasts of Sutherland and Caithness home, so we thought we’d find out why.

Where do you call home in Australia?

The Goldie, Queensland, Oz. What’s it like?

Huh don’t get me started, I went back there last October, my first surf was a nightmare. I paddled out, paddled on the spot for an hour (against the rip) then caught a closeout in. Standing on the beach I decided to count the crew in the 048

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water, I stopped counting at 70. No exaggeration, including 17 SUPs, three goat boaters, two canoes, countless longboarders and a surf life saving row boat. Absolute mayhem, that is why I am no longer there.

I used to count a good surf at my local (on the rare day there were good waves) as one where I caught two or three waves to myself. To get waves you have to act like a Tasmanian Devil on steroids and just go on anything. It’s horrible. On the plus side if you can get waves out there, you’re going to find anywhere else in the world relatively mellow. The surf does get good, the cyclone swells are amazing, but the last four or five years I was there I think we got one single cyclone swell.

They are the best memories of The Goldie spending whole days out at Kirra, (before it got ruined by the super bank) like 10 years ago.

That was when we got several good

cyclone seasons in a row. No skis then either!

It really was a phenomenal wave.

Apparently it’s coming back. When I left there hadn’t been banks at Kirra for years and the dreaded Jet Ski had become the norm. Anything over head high on the Goldie now merits 20 plus tow teams at my local!

So you guys first came over here on the standard surfing and campervan tour, what made you even go to Scotland?

I wanted to experience the summer days of near 24 hour day light. I dunno we were just having a look around; it seemed as good a place as anywhere.

Was it an instant, this is somewhere I want to spend more time, or did the North Coast take a little while to grow on you?

Pretty instant. Me and Jen are simple creatures. It was good enough just

chilling-out down at Brims over summer.

Then the swells started coming through in autumn, and things really improved, and each week we’d be like “just two more weeks”. This went on for eight months.

We ended up moving into the Melvich hotel to help renovate and they are now stuck with us.

I know a lot of the guys up there are amped to have you around to push their surfing, especially the groms, but what about you, it must be pretty daunting on a dark mid winter Scottish day paddling out to some of those slabs, or are you and Clarkie and the other boys just pushing each other?

I dunno about pushing them. I do a lot of hooting though sitting on the shoulder. I’m just stoked to be out there with ‘em. I do have the odd reality check, I remember as a teenager thinking it was freezing when it dropped below 20. Now, I’m happy dealing with frozen rocks, snow and ice in

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Rick Willmett Photo: Tim Nunn

I DO HAVE THE ODD REALITY CHECK, I REMEMBER AS A TEENAGER THINKING IT WAS FREEZING WHEN IT DROPPED BELOW 20 WL SURFMAGAZINE

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Lining up some boils in Scotland Photo: Tim Nunn

the line up. You get the idea, it sometimes feels bizarre to be going surfing surrounded by that.

What about boards up there, do you just bring a stock over from oz and repair them as they crease and snap, or do you shape a few yourself?

I brought a load over from oz, I snapped the initial six, then went back and re-assessed. Came back here last time with heavier glassing on my normal boards plus my treasured slab board. I’ve still got all these, although my slab board has finally been retired, after being snapped and fixed three times. I’m totally amazed at the price of boards over here, so it’d be pretty hard for me to justify paying for a brand spanka. I just look after my boards and try to make them last as long as possible. I’m not too worried about how shiny they look so long as they keep going good.

What about life away from surfing, what do you do to earn a crust up there?

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I went to Uni, but I’ve since realised that was more of a lifestyle choice: five months of holidays each year!! Now we just do whatever we can to make enough to get by. Our original plan was to buy a house or something up here but we’re always changing our minds, it’s a long way from our families, and I sometimes miss the desert, scrub and gum trees; there’s a distinct lack of these in the UK. We’ll probably just hang around for a few more winters then see how we feel after that.

No point in making any permanent decisions prematurely.

DNA’s Photo: Jen Willmett