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It’s Mavericks Surf Time! by Doniphan Blair
Women surfers bust out of the lineup at Mavericks, in a shot from 'It Ain't Pretty'. photo courtesy: D. Soul
AROUND JANUARY 10th, MAVERICKS,
which sits a half-a-mile into the ocean 30 miles south of San Francisco, was breaking BIG, sometimes over 50 feet, which means over 100-foot wave faces. Notified that the Titans of Mavericks competition could commence in a couple days, the world's top surfers started hustling from across the planet.
Alas, conditions were deemed too dangerous and, as of this writing, Mavericks has not been announced. The season ends in March but if held Titans of Mavericks will include, for the first time ever, one female heat.
This is a notable achievement for the world-class women surfers of Northern California, like Sarah Gerhardt and Bianca Valenti, who protested and won the right to compete for the first time this year. Indeed, the struggle of the women, particularly Valenti, was covered nicely in the feature documentary “It Ain’t Pretty” (2017), see cineSOURCE article.
In addition to gender conflicts, last year’s Titans of Mavericks was roiled by the bankruptcy and other problems of Cartel Management, which ran the contest until its recent sale to the World Surfing League. A well-respected organization, WSL runs a lot of contests and has a fantastic site where you can watch surf contests live.
“There has been some dramatic changes for the women,” noted Dayla Soul, director of “It Ain’t Pretty”. “In the last couple years, the opportunities have gotten a lot better, but there is still a lot of work to be done.”
“In the Big Wave World Tour and at Mavericks and Jaws on Maui [Hawaii], women now surf in their own heat. They fought hard for that. [But] they want multiple heats, just like the men. There’s, out on tour, probably 40 guys, but for women only six can compete.”
Valenti, who becomes the sympatico protagonist of Soul’s film, as she trains and surfs but also endures loss and driving the coast alone, “Is doing really well,” said Soul. “She was just featured in a huge article in Surfer with a great photo of her dropping into a ‘bomb’ at Jaws.”
Although surf lingo can be can unintelligible—this is the subculture that gave us “gnarly,” bomb does mean what it suggests: a monster wave.
Soul is currently working on a new film “The Real Activist”, also a Half Moon Bay story but focusing on a wealthy but radical activist Brent Turner.
“He is quite a character. He thinks the elections system is fraudulent and we won’t work in a true democracy until we fix it,” Soul said.
With Peter Coyote is slated to narrate, it will be the pilot for a twelve part series about people who are at the forefront of political, environmental and women's equality change.
“It Ain’t Pretty”, meanwhile, is about to come out on DVD. Soul will show some footage from her new film "The Real Activist" March 28th at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland.
Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer and filmmaker ('Our Holocaust Vacation'), who can be reached .