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Here’s couple of sets of photos from our very own Steen Barnes, scholar, gentleman and surf photographer of prodigious renown. Steen makes his happy home in the Illawarra, just south of Sydney and within spitting distance of both a city centre and the big blue Pacific Ocean. Steen can - and does - take care of business in town, turn up at the right place, with the right lens when the swell arrives, and still be home in time for tea.

Most of Australia’s east coast recently had a good pulse of energy from a storm a long way out in the Coral Sea. East-nor’easterly swell hit the Gold Coast head-on over the weekend: by Sunday it was for heroes and madmen only. Down south at Steen’s local spot the same swell arrived as a long period nor’east, growing over a few days before tapering off under onshore winds. Said Steen: “Chayne surfed the smaller day leading up to the swell on the Sunday, super clean but small and inconsistent. He was coming home from a signwriting job and I snuck out from family duties. We hooked up. When the waves came in they were real pretty but it was a long time in between.”

A couple of days later Steen snuck off from the office late morning to check the spot again. “I rocked up Tuesday around 11am to see Simon checking it in his ugg boots. It was pumping, but Simon was procrastinating. He had just come off night shift with the ambos, (Simon’s a paramedic, if you didn’t  know already), and he’d had a rough night. I was frothing. It looked solid, heavy and clean. I convinced Simon to get out there. He cruised back to his car, and got ready. As he was walking up the beach the most perfect, cleanest wave I had seen for a long time throttled off down the beach, leaving me dancing around, yelling out ... then Simon paddled out and caught the waves pictured. Within 40 minutes the onshore came in and I went back to work.”

 rh 07/19

2015 World Titles: Kiama.

It’s a sunny Wednesday morning in spring. On the southern side of a northern headland just outside Kiama, NSW, four men in wetsuits and coloured vests are paddling out in the rip while a desultory sou'easter half-heartedly crumbles the three foot swell unloading on the adjcaent bank. It’s day two of a surf comp, and up in the carpark stands the usual assemblage: marquees with barbeque, PA, tables and chairs, judges and officials. Amid a murmur of banter and greetings, competitors and spectators settle in for the day. Looking around, there’s a sprinkling of youngsters, but the average age seems to be somewhere over 40. An espresso van will come around mid-morning, but until then they'll make do with sausage sangers, bacon and egg rolls, Nescafe and tea-bags. This competition runs only every other year and it has a pretty laid-back vibe. Welcome to the 2015 Kneeboard Surfing World Title.

There's a bit to get through. 115 competitors across 6 divisions, with many competing in more than one. Maybe 6 or so are serious title contenders, while another dozen might chance it on the very best of good days with a bucket of luck and a following wind. Most are there just because. As the heats progress in the breezy sunshine, the standard of surfing ranges from abysmal to explosively excellent. Nobody bothers to comment much on the former and everyone appreciates the latter. After each heat the returning competitors rejoin friends and rivals on the hill to trade genial insults and jokes. There’s precious little psyching out or up going on here.

So who are these people? They're mostly Aussies, but there's a Californian contingent, some Kiwis, and a few each from Spain, France, Tahiti, Brazil, South Africa, Ireland and the UK. In age they range from mid-teens to late sixties. There are even a few women. Some of the competitors are seeded, but the current title holder isn't defending: veteran shaper David Parkes, just back from a G-Land trip with a few friends, isn't in the mood for onshore South Coast beachbreaks. He’s here all the same though, partly because Chayne Simpson and Albert Munoz, two of the highest ranked kneelos on the circuit, both ride his boards. Everyone’s amped to see these guys surf, but the man to beat is Simon Farrer. Originally from Narrabeen and now a Shellharbour local, Simon’s one of the most natural surfers you'll see anywhere, and even in today's decidedly average conditions, he doesn't disappoint. He has a heat early, which he wins easily, surfing with his usual power, speed and flow on a board designed and built by Bruce Hart. A multiple previous world champ, Farrer has an ability to read the break and navigate his way to exactly where he needs to be that belies an innate affinity with his medium. It seems a shame there aren’t more here to witness his display of skill and fluency, but … well, this isn’t mainstream surfing. Even at the most generous estimate, the identity of the 2015 World Kneeboard champ is of concern to perhaps no more than a thousand people on the planet. Few people either know or care that Parkesy won the 2013 World Title (Tahiti), or that when Albert Munoz won the 2011 title, (Phillip Island), he became the only world surfing champion to hold a PhD. 

Thursday night at Albert's place in the Gong, the TV’s tuned to the local news sport round-up. A reporter introduces the ISA Kneeboard World Championships. It's the last piece in the segment, after a report on the local rugby team. One of the competition organisers, Jim Brown, talks to camera. There are a couple of surfing sequences. Albert gives a soundbyte. About 30 seconds and it's all over.

Friday dawns cool and grey over Kiama. The swell has increased a little overnight and the southerly is blowing hard and the contest has shifted to the Wedge, in the northern corner of Kiama's town beach. The morning's devoted to getting through the bulk of the Open heats and the Wedge is turning it on. Great lumps of Tasman Ocean lurch sideways into the peak and the set waves double-up and throw horizontally. Simon, Chayne, Albert, Gigs Celliers and Gavin Colman, among others, put on a power-surfing clinic: late drops, square bottom turns, savage hacks. It’s a short, sharp, punchy wave and it’s merciless to the hesitant. Commitment and experience score points. Luck figures large: some people just don't get the waves, others get waves they wish they hadn't. It's a brutal process. Most of the spectators will compete in lesser heats later in the day and for now they're content to sit in the wind watching.

 By Saturday it’s Open quarter-finals and the man on man elimination heats start with Gigs - previous winner 4 times, over from South Africa and staying with Simon Farrer - losing to his host. Chayne, Albert and Gavin - who won the 2007 title in Santa Cruz - also make the next round. Then, in a nail-biting semi-final, Chayne beats Simon on a countback, so when Albert beats Gavin, the final is an all Wollongong battle between co-conspirators in LeglessTV and good mates. Chayne’s been runner-up a couple of times before and everyone knows he's aching to win, but in the end he simply doesn't get the score he needs and ends up chairing Albert up the beach. Later, Chayne confesses that his main goal for the contest was to beat Simon in a man on man heat. He’s happy to have achieved that and he’s gracious in defeat but everyone feels his disappointment.

The remains of the day are spent working through the various age divisions and a teams event commentated in comical fashion by Albert and Paul Wright, the sole Irish competitor. Chayne drives home without the title, but he’s happy, planning an afternoon nap before more painting at the house he's just bought, two minutes from Albert's place. He wants to get himself, his wife and infant son moved in as soon as possible. The presentation's at the Leagues Club the following afternoon. He'll have a drink then.

Sunday dawns clear with a light offshore and the swell has dropped overnight. Mid-morning at the Wedge there are a few surfers out, including a couple of the Kiwi kneelos. One of them isn't having a great time: every wave he takes, a footboarder burns him, but he keeps paddling back out, time after time, for one more. These Kiwis are a few of the many kneeloes who have hung around for the presentation, but a few had schedules to keep. Gigs, for instance, flew out early this morning. He's a freelance surf comp commentator and has a date in Portugal for a Womens WSL event.

The presentation’s upstairs at the Leagues Club. The room has a bar at one end, a stage to one side, and tables cover most of the remaining floorspace. Things get rolling on time and progress smoothly: Jim Brown MC’s and he’s had plenty of experience at it. The room’s full, and the few small children present are loud enough to be heard over the murmur and clink of a bunch of surfers having a drink together, but nobody minds, which is just as well, because a good chunk of them are the offspring of the highest placing competitors. Jim kicks things off with a big thank-you to all and sundry. His list includes competitors from 11 countries, sponsors - only one a major surf industry player - judges, photographers, videographers, Kiama council, the local boardriders, Surfing Australia, everyone right down to South Coast local Rob Slater, who made the trophies. He finishes by thanking the kneelos themselves. “If you came just to see surfing, then you missed out on all the fun, which is what this event is all about.” Of course, no-one missed out on the fun, and Jim’s sentiment is echoed by the team captains as they take turns addressing the room. The Brazilian remarks that the week had a “... good vibration. Not one champion - we are all the champion!” A Tahitian says “A pleasure to see all friends. I love you all!”

Of the 12 divisions, Australia won nine, while, perhaps aptly, Tahiti took the Legends and France, the Women’s. Each division winner gets to make a little speech, if they want to. When Terry Day’s turn comes, (Veterans, Australia), he looks around the packed room and makes this observation. “The kneeboarding community is better than any other fraternity in surfing. They’re passionate and they love their sport. They stay to the death.” Well, Terry ought to know. From Sydney’s south side, Terry was part of the legendary Maroubra Kneeriders Association back in the mid 70s and later worked as a WCT judge, competition organiser and surf coach/trainer. He’s been around. By the time the new World Champ, Dr. Albert Munoz takes the stage to collect his trophy, he’s preaching to the converted, and he knows it. “Kneeboarding is a community. We enrich each other’s lives. It’s what we get out of that community and what we put into it.”

The high point of the proceedings comes as a surprise and neatly demonstrates the point everyone’s been trying to make. Gavin Coleman, (Masters, Australia), presents the board he’s ridden throughout the contest, now signed by every competitor, to his former mentor, Scott Lawton. On stage, Gav doesn’t even look like a surfer. It’s hard to believe this quietly spoken man in black pants, shirt and work boots was out at the Wedge yesterday, exploding off the bottom and belting the lip. Scott, now wheelchair-bound after a stroke, was once deeply involved in the organisation and financing of a number of competitions but somehow found time to help the teenaged Gav by taking him to contests, paying his entry fees and generally looking after him. Gav says his few words and carries the board down from the stage to Scott’s table. “Scotty, this is yours now, and everyone wrote on it” he says as he hands the board over. The room erupts in applause.

It’s both sobering and reassuring to look around the room and realise that what brings these people together here is their shared love of an obscure, misunderstood branch of surfing. Nobody’s here chasing fame or trying to get rich. A few might be looking for peer validation, some may want to push the boundaries, but everyone present has one thing in common: they have come just for fun. They’re here to compare notes with friends old and new who think and feel about surfing much the same as they do. They like the way riding a wave on your knees feels and that’s about it. They like bumping into other kneelos and they like sharing their otherness, something in ever-diminishing supply in increasingly crowded line-ups around the world. The benefits are all positive: friendship, respect, generosity, fun. No kneelo today wants or expects anything more from their sport. This is what was at the heart of surfing back in your grandfathers day: otherness, community, stoke. In a world so commodified, packaged and marketed that even authenticity itself has become a trend, kneeboarders have managed to remain absolutely authentic.

A favourite topic among kneeboarders is that the sport is in crisis, that there are so few kids taking it up that it will soon disappear, an anachronism finally laid to rest by its own irrelevance. Reality begs to differ. Since surfing’s modern era got underway in the 50s, a few people have always ridden on their knees, and despite what anyone says, that’s unlikely to change. Why? Because in any group there will always be at least one who wants to be different. It’s as simple as that. Shaper Nick Hartigan has a stock reply for anyone who persists in asking why he doesn’t surf standing up: “If you wanna be a sheep, that’s fine. Be a sheep. I’d rather be an individual.” There’s really nothing more to say on the subject. If you need to have it explained, you wouldn’t understand.

The next ISA Kneeboard World Title is on in 2017 in Cantabria, Spain. It’d be good if you could make it.

Editorial: Rob Harwood

Simon Farrer blistering on through and early autumn light.

Photo: Steen