The vertical wooden spiral built by skateboarding legend Tony Hawk will be adapted to artificial surf pool designed by the Kelly Slater Wave Company.

The skate and surf legends will team up to design a complex structure that will allow surfers to descend a helix curve straight into a man-made wave. In other words, it will be a skate-to-surf acid drop transfer.

“I had a chat with Kelly when we were in Europe recently, and he asked me if I had any idea of what to add to a surf park. I told him I had just built a downward spiral loop, and he loved it,” Tony Hawk told SurferToday.com.

read more at surfertoday.com

Promotional video for what is claimed to be the first ever shark-proof wetsuit. SAMS (Shark Attack Mitigation Systems) claims to have developed a wetsuit that confuses sharks. It says it has come up with two types of wetsuit: one that warns the shark you are there and another that effectively camouflages the user.

see video here

Surfing groups from Europe, Latin America and the United States are expected to gather in Rosarito Beach on Monday (May 6th-8th) for a three-day conference aimed at conserving the world’s top surf spots.

Global Wave Conference III focuses on surf protection efforts across the globe, including Mexico, Peru, Portugal, France and Great Britain. The event will include discussions of the problems faced by various regions, but also presentations of environmental success stories.

“All the different groups have different strengths,” said Chad Nelsen, environmental director for the San Clemente-based Surfrider Foundation, which is organizing the event together with the Imperial Beach-based group, WiLDCOAST.

As surfing has gained popularity, “we’ve been trying to coordinate those groups to develop a really global network of surf protection.”

The keynote speaker will be Efrain Niebla, Baja California’s secretary of environmental protection.

read more at UTSanDiego