A film about softly feathering lips, low-tide caverns, transferable skills & good shoes
Those of you with an ear to the ground, a finger on the throbbing pulse of the UK surf scene, will surely be familiar with the name of Will Bailey.
A North Devon native, Will grew up in the seaside town of Woolacombe, home to the long, gently sloping, eponymous beach we all know and in some cases even love. Here he studied hard, mastering its vagaries, honing his high-performance attack, developing an impressive set of transferable skills… and possibly wishing he lived in Croyde. He is by all accounts a top bloke, salt of the earth, etc.
But though it may lack the punch and definition of Croyde to the south – its dank low-tide caverns, its chiselled A-frames – Woolacombe still has its moments. And with Devon’s best wave just a short drive away in any case, and numerous adjacent options in either direction, Will received a well-rounded education in the ways of the beach break, the point break, the reef.
In this short profile film presented by etnies and directed by Pete Cox, he whacks a succession of softly feathering lips, he swoops and slices with swift precision, he worships at Croyde’s murky inner sanctum. He also goes to South Africa, volunteers for the epic Surfers Not Street Children organisation, and, back home in Devon, sessions a mini ramp. That frontside flip at 1:35, amply popped and perfectly caught, is a lovely thing, channelling a floppy-haired, etnies-clad Tom Penny circa ’95.
Need new shoes for concrete-wave shredding, four-wheeled surf checks, and/or beachfront strolls?
