Vitor Oliveira

A surf lesson in Lagos, Nigeria, led filmmaker Geoff Browne to an unexpected story about a father trying to provide for his family. The result is "Godpower," a short film rooted in the lives of the people who call Tarkwa Bay home. Its success is now bringing attention to a surf community that deserves to be better known. The story began with a T-shirt. The film that brought two surfers together Geoff Browne, a Canadian-American filmmaker, was in Lagos when he noticed that his old "The Endless Summer" shirt listed Nigeria among the places featured in the 1966 surf documentary. Curious to discover a surf scene he had never known existed, he booked a lesson with Godpower Pekipuma through Instagram. They agreed to meet under a bridge, and Browne soon learned that reaching the beach would require a boat ride.  Tarkwa Bay lies off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria's largest city.  The beach is a short boat ride from the mainland, but its setting feels removed from ...

Airplane flights and surfboards are two worlds that rarely get along. The chances of damaging your favorite surfboard because of poor airport baggage handling are high. Now, there could be hope. A surf trip can take months to dream about and plan, but one bad impact at the airport can ruin your favorite stick. But things might have changed. Rockair has developed a reusable foam protection system that fits inside an existing surfboard travel bag, giving surfers another way to reduce damage risk in transit. The idea came from a familiar problem for anyone who flies with surfboards. Traditional travel bags offer some protection, but many surfers still wrap their boards in cardboard, bubble wrap, and towels before checking them in. Rockair wants to make that extra layer of protection easier to manage. A reusable shield for your surfboard Rockair uses high-density polyethylene foam to create a protective shell that wraps around the front and back of a single surfboard. The two-pi...

The surfboard has become a disposable piece of surfing equipment that most people carry on their heads or by hand, thanks to easy-grip designs and integrated handles. It seems democracy and globalization aren't doing surfing any favors. I know it's a controversial take, but bringing surfing to more and more people isn't making surf culture any better. On the contrary, it's turning it into a purchasable "experience" you can have once in a lifetime, just like skydiving or eating insects in a remote location in Asia. "Surfing? Yeah, I tried it once. It was fun," you could probably hear while socializing and making small talk at a fancy or hipster party. Yes, you were part of a large group that paid a substantial amount of money to be pushed into whitewater mini-waves for 90 minutes by a surf instructor. It must've been quite an experience. Congrats. Generation Decathlon While doing it - probably never knowing who Duke Kahanamoku or Kelly ...

The free online game lets players ride reef breaks, chase barrels, tackle a fictional 100-foot (30-meter) wave, and surf with friends without installing a conventional video game. And no, it's not True Surf nor YouRiding. It's called SumbaSurf. Surfing video games have often struggled to reproduce the feeling of riding a wave. SumbaSurf is different. The browser-based game puts players in a first-person view, where they can paddle into waves, carve along the face, and pull into a barrel while the lip throws overhead. It's an immersive, first-person 3D surfing game that is free to play and designed for both computers and mobile devices. It combines individual wave riding with multiplayer sessions, surf contests, and a collection of fictional reef breaks inspired by the Indonesian island of Sumba. The game was released on September 27, 2026, and has continued to receive pretty regular and consistent updates. Its feature set includes a 30-meter tow-in wave, famous int...

Booking a surf trip online should be easy. You find a camp, compare the rooms and surf packages, pay a deposit, and start checking the forecast. But what happens when the company handling your reservation goes bankrupt before you even pack your board? That is the situation facing customers of BookSurfCamps.com, a website that connects travelers with surf camps around the world. Its owner, Tripaneer B.V., a company based in Amsterdam, was declared bankrupt at the end of September or beginning of October 2026, according to the bankruptcy records and the information published by the company's trustee. SurferToday.com confirmed that the Amsterdam District Court declared Tripaneer bankrupt on September 30, 2026, after ending its suspension of payments. The ruling was published in the Dutch insolvency register on October 2. The news raises an important question for anyone planning a surf holiday: what happens to your money when the company that took your booking can no longer opera...

Larry Bertlemann spent the 1970s showing surfers that a wave could be ridden in ways they had barely imagined. He crouched low over his board, twisted through tight turns, and threw his weight into maneuvers that seemed to defy the rules of the sport. On land, skateboarders were watching closely, and soon they were borrowing his movements for the streets and concrete pools of California. Known as the Rubberman, the Hawaiian surfer became one of the defining figures of the shortboard revolution . His competitive record was impressive, but his real influence was harder to measure. Bertlemann helped change the way surfers moved on a wave, encouraged skateboarders to develop new techniques, and showed professional athletes how commercial sponsorship could support a career. Bertlemann died on October 10, 2026, at the age of 71, following complications from a heart attack at The Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. His death marked the passing of a surfer whose influence ext...