SW 395: First Glimpse At The Day After Tomorrow

“Carroll, Doherty and Jennings strap their sticks to the roof of the Delorean and fly back to the future!”
– Vaughan Blakey

THE TURNING
We’re spending a lot of this mag looking into surfing’s future, but what sort of future will it be when so much of what we’ve known for so long is also coming to an end? SW Senior Writer and surfing megamind Nick Carroll looks at this unprecedented period of cultural transition.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE
Have you ever wondered what surfing might look like in 2099? Do you reckon sharks will have legs by then? Will outer space surf lords be a thing? Will Kelly still be on tour? Doesn’t really matter, so long as there are some tasty waves and a cool buzz we’ll be fine.

THE STARDUST APOCALYPSE
Did you know SW Editor at Large Sean Doherty has a little stall at the Bangalow markets where he spreads cat hair on an old Spiderman doona then rubs his body in baby oil and rolls on the doona creating a pattern of cat hair which he then reads to predict the future of passers-by? It’s pretty gross.

IT HAS BEEN FORETOLD
Last year Mike Jennings, of 2016 women’s fantasy surfer runner-up fame, took on the role of S’WSL prediction correspondent. Using complicated mathematical algorithms and other science he deducted that come year’s end Kai Lenny and Kerri-Anne Kennerley would get married and have a baby named Kakai.

BEYOND THUNDERDOME
Smart phones! Computers! Social media! Fax machines! Is there no end to the invading of technology into our once sacred surfing realm? Perhaps the future lies not in evolution but in devo-lution. It’s time surfers ditched the appliance chargers and started charging into the wastelands like Mad Max and the Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla.

A COLLISION OF WORLDS
He’s drawing lines that have never been seen on boards created from his own imagination. The future terrifies the shit out of him, but only because there are way too many possibilities to have even more fun. Welcome to the utopian mind space of Californian renaissance man and eternal stoker, Ryan Burch.

BALLISTIC MISSILES
On January 13 an early-morning emergency alert mistakenly warning of an incoming ballistic missile attack was dispatched to cellphones across Hawaii setting off widespread panic in a state that was already on edge because of escalating tensions between the United States and North Korea. And it got us wondering… what would surfing be without Hawaii?