Watch: Locals Only
'Locals Only'
It's one of the more stupid sayings within surfing, at least how we understand it. Is there a surfer alive who hasn't, or hasn't aspired to, travel?
Yet this clip does indeed feature locals only. Not every local at this particular hamlet, but four of them: Paul Stanton, Karl Attkins, Beau Cram, and Nick Laidlaw, blokes you can trust to be amongst the first out on every swell.
This was again the case during May, when an extended run of swell replete with shifts in swell direction and wind threw the spotlight on various waves within their postcode.
Heads up to both the filmmaker Spencer Frost and his brother Dylan who scored it. A fantastic family combo.
Comments
There may be a few Stu. Surfers with no aspirations of traveling beyond their home break.
Really? Maybe when they get older they wanna stay put.
But I don't think I've ever met a young surfer who'd only ever surf one wave and never wanted to travel.
(Even Rick Riley shifted from the Alley to the Point)
and Rick Riley never looked left again.....
And once to Shark Island where he ran over my foot. 10 stitches!
I do love him though!
What a classic...i surf with Rick everytime the Point is good....NEVER beat him out to the lineup haha
Nice clip guys.
Really nice to see some content from Sydney. Not sure if you’re light on footage but would be good to see a little more from the region in future too.
Cheers
I think Rick has been going to Bali over the last few years.
You're right, I retract that comment.
Good stuff drawing attention to Dylan's music, Stu. He's a good bloke, okayish soccer player, and a bloody good musician.
Cool to see some footage of the bombie (don't see much of it) along with the other local haunts, but a shame there were only snippets of waves. Felt more like a long trailer than a full edit.
Is that Avericks? Looks good.
Yeah, few shots of it in there. Never seen footage of it that clean and breaking that well before.
nice...i can feel the cold water going down the back of my wetty just watching that.
i love surfing under those big golden sandstone cliffs.
Local blokes having a good dig. No doubting the commitment, skill and fortitude of those crew.
Sydney confirmed as a shithole. The reason those waves were clipped short is because they were closeouts.
The sacrificial anode of Australian surfing.....thank Christ.
There is plenty of good surf in Sydney Blowy.
Great clip, well shot, music complemented it nicely.
On any given swell, there's always a handful of locals that will own it, these blokes included.
For sure there’s plenty of good surf in Sydney.
If you remove South of the harbour ( which is an entirely different zone ) it compares well with .....Cornwall, UK.
Let’s face it . Northern Beaches of Sydney is a pretty ( as in beautiful ) low point in the Oz coastline.
It’s amongst the worst stretch of NSW for quality waves.
Far South NSW ....better .
South NSW...better
Coal coast....better
South of the harbour.....better
Central coast .....better
Newcastle....better
Mid north .....better
North coast....better
Pssst...Zen...it’s probably not that bad , but you’ve got to give it to them. Fuckers thought Sydney surfing WAS Australian surfing for the last 60 years. Still , they emanate out from there on their exposure career missions to exploit the great waves of Oz whilst the gun regional surfers know that getting shacked and keeping your lips sealed is a much better option. If you took the Northern Beaches / Gold Coast influence out of Oz surfing then Australia might not have as many names on Dirk Ziff’s leaderboard but there’d be much , much , much more fun to be found in modern surfing.
Every dog has its day my friend.
Hope ya get the lot ya dog! Get back on protection ya Mutt!
Google it if you wondering wtf I'm on about ;-0
Strongly disagree, the amount of surfable days on the Northern Beaches per year compared to other regions can't compare. When howling NE and blown out with no size up north, it's great fun, and when all that south swell is missing the far south, Sydney still picks it up. Short beaches and headlands and lots of options. Way more across the km stretch and accessible compared to all those other zones where you have to put in much more time if the beach you go to isn't on.
The amount of surfable days ?
You can pretty much surf anywhere in NSW on any given day if you are keen. That’s it’s superpower.
Blowin you don’t really need to encourage more road trips out of Sydney at the moment...Sydney definitely has the biggest, best and most consistent surf in NSW...
Blowin, whereabouts on the Northern Beaches do you live? :-)
here here.
Nothing like a south swell in Sydney! Peaky pitts everywhere
Av's a hole, would rather surf Little Naz in 2ft slop (like most of my dole days early 80's, couldn't afford bus fare to go anywhere else) (insert laugh emoji here)
So with the sheer numbers in that massive city (and I guess the water) and reasonably quality spots such as the various Sydney points and reefs, how come sites like this are constantly bombarded with footage from the Gold Coast?
Are there not that many good days in Sydney? Less people intent on showing every 3 foot clean day on the internet? Same goes for the Surf Coast - extremely well populated, way less content from out there.
Goldy has the benefits of very predictable waves, so it's easy to film, it's (mostly) clear water and pictureseque so it presents well, and it also has the highest ratio of good surfers of anywhere in Australia.
Nothing worse for a filmer than standing on a beach watching good waves get murdered by hacks.
Yes was just thinking it through further and thought the pro / elite surfer factor would be one of the reasons.
I saw a bit of raw footage elsewhere of beautiful Bell's / Winki that had some fairly average surfing attached to it. Took slightly away from the spectacle.
I like watching average surfers in good waves.
Makes me feel better.
Oh for sure. I like the variety of watching different surfers in different waves. Certainly doesn't have to be all elite viewing, my example above was probably the only one exception I can recall. I guess I understood why sites like this may not be rushing to put that content out there.
It is very cool watching average surfers get barreled or get a few nice sets.
in different periods of surf culture the media focus changes to different waves
in the 70s the pinnacle of surfing was tube time and the surfing industry and media was concentrated in sydney -- hence we got lots of shot of terry fitzgerald at NN and terry richardson at at aussie pipe.
the surf industry (now more of an industry ) and media has moved to northern nsw/se queensland. so now we get shots of sponsored riders in very crowded waves in se queensland.
Videos like this underscores how good the pros actually are.
I thought the same thing!
Loved this, great footage and the music to boot. More please from those guys.
Having Grown-up on the Gold Coast and moving to Sydney for career, yep – Sydney is crap. Just enough waves if you are dialled in (with swellnets help) to remain sane.