Co-Vids: A How To Ride Teeny Tiny Summer Barrels With Brett Barley
During the early months of late Spring and Summer, before the tropical cyclone season begins to hopefully kick in, the east coast mantra is ‘if it moves, we’re on it”.
Waves of any size – measured in feet or inches – are welcomed during these doldrum months and are pick-ed over by surfers en masse like seagulls fighting over a washed up fish carcass utilizing long boards, mid-ranger’s, short boards, soft tops of every size and shape, skim boards, hand planes for body surfing, SUP’S with the occasional kayak thrown in here and there.
And when G.I. Joe sized mini-tubes are on offer guys like Brett Barley are folding themselves and going deep ( well as “deep” as one can go on a G.I. Joe wave anyway ) into 3 x 3 foot mini-kegs squeezing out every drop of fun out of it til the stand up days return.
Brett breaks down technique in this cool tutorial for the Lilliputian wave inclined Gulliver’s out there and it is a very well done video primer indeed.
Somewhere the King Of All Small Barrel Rider’s, the 6 foot 4 Wes Laine, smiles. – Mez –
From huge Waimea to 3rd reef Pipeline to closed out Sunset Beach, big wave Hellman Wes Laine could do it all including deftly stuffing his 6 foot 4, Gulliver-like frame into a 2 foot cylinder like this one on the north side of Rodanthe Pier, circa 1987. Wes never wasted a summer swell nor met a barrel no matter the size he didn’t love. Photo: Mez