World longboard champs could be on this weekend!

Britains Ben Skinner took off this morning on his 17 hour journey from Cornwall to LA to meet the swell. Going for a world title while juggling work, family and budgets.

Event organizers are tracking a potential swell that could light up First Point Malibu and see competition run on Saturday, October 7, or Sunday, October 8. With a promising forecast later in the waiting period, anticipation is high for the one-day, winner-take-all event that will determine the 2023 World Surf League (WSL) Longboard Champions.

Will Hayen-Smith, WSL Senior Manager, Global Development Tours. “The weekend of October 7th and 8th looks to be providing some potential of running competition and crowning our 2023 WSL Longboard Champions. We’re also seeing some potential swell options in the last few days of the waiting period that we’re keeping close tabs on, but there’s a lot of anticipation for what the 7th or 8th could provide.”

Three-time WSL Longboard Champion Taylor Jensen (USA) enters the Original Sprout Malibu Longboard Championships Presented by Tractor Beverage Co. as the No. 3 ranked man. He will have to overcome the winner of Match 2, No. 2 ranked Kai Sallas (HAW), and No.1 ranked Kaniela Stewart (HAW) if he is to earn a historic fourth World Title.

“There’s a huge advantage [having a higher seed], you’re surfing a lot of heats in one day at Malibu,” said Jensen. “If you’re in that bottom part of the rankings, the Top 3 have a major advantage and obviously being first, you see what Filipe (Toledo) does every year. It’s a huge advantage. I haven’t seen anyone get four World Titles in my career span. Nat (Young) did it in the late 80s when he got his fourth, and it’d be cool to do. It’s just a goal I set, it’s kind of a crazy goal, and I’m just here trying to do it.”

Errico and Jensen will have to contend with the likes of current No. 1s Stewart and Kelis Kaleopa’a (HAW) and a hungry field of competitors, including three-time WSL Longboard Champion Honolua Blomfield (HAW), 2015 WSL Longboard Champion, Rachael Tilly, and Philippines rising star Rogelio Jr Esquievel (PHL).

Living the dream on the west coast of Ireland.

Meet Josh Karbus. He is three times Irish Junior champion, charges slabs and freedives with whales, dolphins and sharks. He’s living the dream in Lahinch on the west coast of Ireland.

Producer & Editor: Hand Studio @hand_studio
Additional footage: @georgekarbus

Beach Cleans help remove 99% of micro plastics

Beach cleans are working… Science

Got to be honest, I was more “I’m coming through you door” than a “I’ll clean up” type of Yoof when it came to sewage and plastic pollution, but a new study has proven picking up beach plastics reduced micro plastic on shore and in coastal water by 99%.

Sky News reported experts from Norce, one of Norway’s largest research organisations, had proven “beach cleans rapidly and dramatically reduce plastic fragments released into the environment, according to the first scientific evidence of its kind.

“Within a year of volunteers removing bottles, bags and other large pieces of plastic from the shore of an island near Bergen, the amount of microplastic on land and in the water fell by 99.5%.

“The scientists believe high levels of UV in sunlight and warm temperatures in shallow water lead to a far more rapid degradation of plastic fragments than had previously been thought possible.

“They say it should motivate a global effort to clean up coasts around the world.

Gunhild Bodtker, senior researcher at Norce, told Sky News: “I was happily surprised because it means the clean-up has efficiently reduced the leakage of microplastic into the sea. And that is really good news.

“Clean up plastic on the shores, clean up all the plastic in the environment. It really makes a difference.”

The bay “acts as a giant funnel, collecting marine plastic swept by ocean currents from as far away as the UK, France and the Netherlands.’

“We found stretches of what the Norce scientists call “plastic soil” – a layer, up to 1m deep, of densely-packed fragments mixed with organic matter.

“The microplastic pieces, which are less than 5mm in size, are likely to have been accumulating in the fjord for the last 50 years. They’re virtually impossible to remove.

“Torgeir Naess, the mayor of Kvam municipality, was part of the year-long clean-up.

“When I used to come here as a little kid in the mid-1970s it was just a few ping pong balls and some bottles,” he said. “You can see now it has increased dramatically.”

“But the new research strongly suggests that all is not lost. As long as large pieces of plastic are regularly removed, the fragments should begin to disappear.

“Plastic waste in deep, cold water could still take centuries to degrade.

“Some of the submerged plastic is ‘ghost gear’ – lost fishing nets and pots that continue to trap and kill marine life.

“The ghost fishing continues to harvest and it’s of no use to anyone,” she said. “It’s also an animal welfare issue – as well as plastic.”

More than 9,000 tonnes of plastic have been cleaned from Norway’s coast since the death of a whale in Bergen six years ago, its stomach stuffed with bags.

“At the same time plastic will come back, but we will keep [levels] down and clean year by year.

So a quick Two Minute Beach Clean down your local, or even just picking up some one walk back up the beach after a surf really does work!