Legendary surfer Ian Cairns will launch volume two of his memoirs Kanga: The Trials and Triumphs of Ian Cairns - a reminder of those heady early days of pro surfing - at Caringbah's Force Nine Surfboards on April 13.
Ironically, the Force 9 Surfboards factory is located at 43 Captain Cook Drive, Caringbah and is only metres away from the old G&S Surfboard factory which made the Bronzed Aussie Surfboards that Cairns was an integral part of.
In his books, Cairns has an even bigger story to tell than the giant waves he rode in Hawaii and Western Australia. And he's not scared to answer the hard questions.
Cairns won seven majors while competing on the world tour. He charged Hawaii's huge waves and has seen a lot of stuff, good and bad, happen while helping transform the world of professional surfing.
The autobiography follows Cairns on his odyssey from a stoked kid with a passion for waves to an outspoken young man who rises from the obscurity of Western Australia to become an acclaimed big wave champion, trail-blazing sports administrator and winning coach in the USA.
Cairns is confronted with many life-threatening challenges along the way as his journey reaches the pinnacle of world surfing.
'Kanga' is a sports biography, adventure and surf history book wrapped into two volumes. In the 1970s Cairns and pioneering professional surfers dreamed of being recognized as legitimate sportsmen. In these books they tell how it became reality.
Volume one is set in Australia, South Africa and Hawaii's awesome North Shore. Cairns features with other surf legends, heroes and hard men in conflict and surfing's transformation from the drug-infused hippy era of the late 1960s to a fledgling world tour in the late 1970s.
Volume two charts the spectacular fall and resurrection of Cairns in the USA as surfing becomes a multi-billion dollar industry with Olympic Games status. Insightful reading for anyone interested in the dramatic changes surfing and surfboards underwent during the short board revolution as the sport reaches the performance and equipment of today.
Plenty of world surfing champions lined up to have their say about the outspoken Cairns. Peter Townend, the original IPS World Champion in 1976 who lived at Cronulla and was partners in the Bronzed Aussies with Cairns at the time, said Cairns had lived an extreme existence.
Ian Cairns book launch at Force 9 Surfboards on Saturday, April 13 from 1pm.
Surfing conditions have been perfect in Cronulla for the past three days-if you are a 15 year old Malibu rider.
It's been offshore all day and the banks on the beach are as good as they have been for years ,but it's been a cranky 2 ft at best with Sunday the pick of the week.
That gets to change this morning when yesterday's Sou-easter has brought a new 3-4ft south swell ,it also brought with it a fresh sou-easter that isn't doing the surface conditions any favours- this swell will sit around the 2-3 ft mark until the weekend when we get our first real Autumn waves,a 4-6ft south swell .
The winds will be mainly onshore with this swell increase but Sunday is the day where we should collect, with good size waves and offshores all day.
There was only one show in town this week and that was the Vissla Sydney Surf Pro at Manly beach-North Narrabeen local Jordy Lawler and Alessa Quizon (HAW) claimed victory at the 2019 Vissla Sydney Surf Pro and Sydney Women's Pro presented by Sisstrevolution World Surf League Qualifying Series 6000 event.
Manly Beach provided another day of super clean two-to-three foot surf for some of the world's best to put on a show for thousands of fans that lined the sand at one of competitive surfing's most iconic beaches.
"I've worked my whole life to be standing here on this stage right here so to be doing it now feels surreal," Lawler said.
"Winning an event of this size and gaining 6000 QS points is so good but to win down here at Manly with everyone from North Narrabeen here is incredible. Surfing an event so close to home is so sick but winning one is amazing. I don't even know what to say to be honest. I feel like I'm dreaming. "
All the Cronulla surfers dipped first heat and have to pull their socks up at their next event before they get left behind-Connor is sitting at 13th but is 11 thousand points behind leader Jadson Andre who has almost qualified on 15,000 where he has gone in three 6000 point contests for a win and two seconds-unbelievable.
After falling off the elite Championship Tour in 2016, Alessa Quizon has taken a step back from competition and has focussed less on re-qualifying for the CT. The young Hawaiian has been hand picking events and taking it heat-by-heat, trying as much as possible to surf without pressure on herself. This new, more relaxed approach seems to be working as Quizon took out the first major QS event win of her career. Alessa will now have to reassess her plans for competition as she sits in fourth place on the WSL QS rankings.
