With just a little under three weeks until Port Mac’s Festival of the Sun is upon us, organisers have unleashed the final line-up announcement for 2009. With a line-up that has already been dubbed the best yet, the FOTSUN team is excited to announce the last acts, as well as the winner of Triple J’s ‘Unearthed’ competition, Royal Chant, being added to the already glowing bill.

So the final line-up for Festival of the Sun 2009 is as follows : Spiderbait, Little Birdy, The Beautiful Girls, Children Collide, Urthboy, Pez, Philadelphia Grand Jury, Bob Log III, The Wilson Pickers, Red Riders, Grant Walmsley & The Agents Of Piece, Bonjah, Me, Red Ink, The Foreign Objects, Chris Pickering, Ashleigh Mannix, Geoff Turnbull, Eliza Ellen, Nick & Liesl, Nathan Kaye, Purple Sneakers DJ's and Royal Chant.

Set amongst the beautiful and wave-blessed Sundowner Breakwall Tourist Park the festival runs this December 11 and 12. The festival stands apart for the beachside setting meaning you can spend your mornings surfing Breakwall and your afternoons listening to smashing sounds.

There are only 3,000 tickets available to Festival of the Sun this year (a number that is getting smaller and smaller everyday) and the limited capacity means that FOTSUN can maintain the relaxed vibe that has made the festival so unique and popular with the punters in previous years.

Festival of the Sun has been a sell-out for the past three years and is heading that way for 2009. Tickets are on sale now for $120 + bf (that includes camping) through the website. Log onto www.fotsun.com.au

Sponsored by No.6, here’s Max around home and the South Coast. No embed capabilities so you will have to click through here.

A night to Movember

Luke Shadbolt is promoting an art showcase party happening at Terrigal, Central Coast, on November 27. A tenner for entry, five for drinks and all the good times and sexy people you could poke with your paint brush. It’s on at the Lord Ashley Bar from 8pm, artists include:

Phil Harkness | Shannon Graham | Brent Smith | Luke Shadbolt | Riley Blakeway | Chad Waldron | Nick McArthur | Adam Turnbull | Lucie Ferguson | Tez | Dave Undead | Oxen + a host of local artists.

All money goes to Movember + Breast Cancer Awareness.

www.fantasyquad.com.au

Okay, folks. A vid to stir some excitement. 

RESPECT COMPANY///PutYourNameHere from Bruno Miguel Gomes on Vimeo.

Now that you’ve met the man, come see how he surfs.

Boom! The Dave Winchester Mini Series Ep 2 - NSW from Waldron Bros Production on Vimeo.

Matty McCann gives D. Winchester the reader hazing. 

 Winchester image courtesy of here.

Matt McCann: What’s the most confronting thing that’s happened to you in the surf?

Dave Winchester: A few years ago in Hawaii. I dropped in on a local without seeing him, and they wanted to fight. I’m not a fighter so I copped a couple and got on with it.

Matt McCann: Where do you see the sport going in the next ten years, relating to wave riding, boards and manoeuvres?

Dave Winchester: The sport should be massive in ten years. The waves everyone is surfing are bigger and everyone is hitter bigger sections. Moves wise I think it will be pretty similar, just on a bigger scale. Boards are really starting to develop now, with weighted boards for towing, different tails for small waves. 3D cores are insane so it’s all happening in board development. It’s hard to say where it will end up in ten years.

Matt McCann: What part of Australia is creating the best young riders at the moment, and who?

Dave Winchester: WA has got some really good kids it seems. Alex Halsey, Lewy Finnegan, and Davis Blackwell are all young and surfing well. Also a few guys from Port Mac and the Sunny Coast.

Matt McCann: Is DK dying? If not, who’s keeping it alive and how?

Dave Winchester: DK is just the same I think. The Lackey DVD should help push it I think.

Matt McCann: Localism?

Dave Winchester: Not much at all, it’s hard to say though. I surf a lot of different places as I travel so much, so I’m never really a local and rarely know who the locals are out there. Every now and then you get some knob, like at places like Ices.

Matt McCann: Finally, what do you have to offer the sport that other professional riders do not?

Dave Winchester: I really try hard at my job. I do everything in my power to become better. I do all the promos, coaching clinics, Australian tour, world tour, photo trips, get footage. These days it is so competitive so you have to work hard at it.

For the most part these reader interviews have been a failure. Public executions from readers with a lust for blood. This one may be no different. Brendan Soulas with the questions, Ryan Hardy at the ready.

Hardy image courtesy of here.

BS: As you have ridden for both a corporate surf company and are now riding for solely bodyboarding companies do you feel the sport has the capacity to break free from the surf industry and into something that is new and fresh in itself?

Ryan Hardy: I think that bodyboarding has already broken free from the surfing industry. Not entirely but for the most part bodyboarders are now exposed to many bodyboard-only labels in wetsuits, clothing, accessories and boards. The next big question is will bodyboarding break free entirely and will it be able to survive on its own? I'd like to think so, as would everyone else living and breathing this sport.

BS: As you are one of the most publicised bodyboaders in the sport, do you think that had you had ridden for a bodyboard company during your blooming period and not Billabong that the industry may have grown more?

Ryan Hardy: I don't think it would have made a make or break impact. As you saw with guys like Kingy, Toby, Thorto and Hughesy who went that way with Rejected but were back to square one in a couple of years. I think to make a huge impact it would take all the top guys to completely boycott their surf industry sponsors and pool into bodyboard labels to really make an impact, and when it's often the case that established riders are able to be fulltime professionals because of these surf industry brands then you have to have a good hard think about what you're risking by taking those sorts of gambles.

Hardy image courtesy of here.

BS: If you had chosen a bodyboard only label would you have been financially able to push the sport as much as you have?

Ryan Hardy: As I explained in the last answer, because of my involvement with Billabong and my other sponsors I was able to travel freely across Australia and abroad to push myself and the sport which may not have been possible if it weren't for their involvement over the years.

BS: Do you feel that Chris White’s Tension series undermined the public opinion of the sport, as in its immature and negative “skits” outweighed the positive aspects that he filmed, such as tow out/in bodyboarding and new wave discovery?

Ryan Hardy: I really have to step back and take a breath when I hear questions like these mocking Whitey, who I have known as a good friend through bodyboarding since we both started competing in our early teens. Beneath Tension, Whitey is one of the most passionate, bodyboard crazed dudes I've ever met and in my lifetime I know I will never see him degrade or undermine the image of bodyboarding. So with that said, some people will watch pranks in videos and be disgusted and probably turn it off but for a good majority of the young demographic they'll probably think it's funny as shit, be blown away by the surfing and super amped on the tech editing and sick music and be left feeling good about this sport that me and my mates are into. Whitey is a fricken genius. I'm sure the parents will be stoked to see how happy and excited they are with their lives out of school and work. Sure they might get involved in some pranks themselves but what teenager doesn't feel the urge to make a ruckus and make their friends laugh. Beats some depressed runaway kid making his next break and enter for a rush with other unfortunate friends that don't have bodyboarding in their lives to keep them high and happy. Do you still care about Tension undermining our sport? I don't and I never took it seriously anyway. Sorry, I’ll take another breath, next question.

BS: And through this public opinion has body boarding lost financial sponsorship that it could have possibly could have otherwise attracted for tours etc?

Ryan Hardy: I’ll let my last answer speak for this question. Tension has nothing to do with undermining our sport or its sponsorship or lack thereof. Bigger issues come into this topic of sponsorship for riders and events and the level of growth in our sport. It's a numbers game of participants, sales, value for the dollar and 1+1 equalling 2. I'm not an economist so that's my simplified take on things.

Anyway, thanks for the questions Brendan I hope these answers give you some insight to the bodyboarding world from a pro’s perspective. 

A little interview about big waves, with Jeff Hubbard.

Jeff Hubbard image courtesy of here.

Another hard hitting interview from Keith Lewis.

KL: Have you ever considered riding big wave spots like Jaws?

Jeff Hubbard: I have thought about it and it looks like an amazing wave, but the crowd factor and my limited jet ski experience have both kept me from pursuing any real notions of tackling it.