The Atavistic Surfer: Bruce Irons

By: Matt George | Covered Images | October 30, 2008 | Off the deepend Profile

Man on a primordial level.
A blood relative of the ocean.
Our ancestors crawled from the sea carrying the ocean within them.
No secret that it evolved into what we call blood. Salty. Part oxygen. Everything we own.
When a man’s blood pours from his body, so does his life.
Small wonder we feel this Melvillian tug, this curious longing to be in close proximity to the sea. All of us.
But especially surfers.
It is they who have the ability and the drive to cross a reverent border, to jump off the edges of the continents, to go out onto the waters, to risk their lives to experience a sublime universal belonging.
Some of them have taken it all the way. Learning to ride inside the spinning vortex of the oceans’ most violent places on small plastic toys.
Surfers call it tube riding, and there is one among us who stands along with the best in history at this remarkable act.
I caught up with Bruce Irons fresh from his win at the Rip Curl Pro on the Island of Bali. We sat down to briefly discuss the state of the art of riding a surfboard inside the hollows of breaking waves. The following discussion took place on a warm afternoon at a balcony restaurant in Kuta Beach, Bali, Indonesia at 13:40 hours on Aug. 15, 2008.

Matt George: How has tube riding changed in your lifetime, Bruce?

Bruce Irons:  The thruster surfboard design changed everything for me. The thruster surfboard allowed us to get off those big, thick, single-fin boards with no rocker and into these smaller, thinner, three-fin rocket ships. Now, we could pump for speed in the barrel instead of just following the obvious line. Now, we could dictate where we went in the tube and not just try to get out. The thruster allowed us to actually generate speed and gave us the control and time inside that we needed to figure out what was really happening behind the curtain. Those three fins allow you go deep and stay in control even on the foam ball. That’s when things start happening to you back there. You are looking out at the world through the spinning tunnel, you are skittering between heaven and earth, you are fighting for control of something you cannot control, and that’s when things like time begin to bend and warp. Funny thing is, you can never remember a tube ride exactly or what you felt in there. You only know that you want it again.

MG: What makes a good tube rider?

BI: Clean style and balls. You can have balls but no style, and you look like shit. Or you can have style and be a pussy and not go. You need both to be great.

MG: Who is the best tube rider of all time?

BI: My brother.

(Bruce’s Brother Andy is a former two-time world champion who possesses an uncanny ability inside waves. Andy is credited with the longest tube ride in history).

MG: Where is the best barrel in the world?

BI: Anywhere you get barreled. I know everyone would say Teahupoo in Tahiti or Pipe on the North Shore or something … but to me, man, the best barrel in the world is the one that you are in at any given time.

MG: Backside tube riding seems to be moving toward surfing in the tube without grabbing the rail. True?

BI: Basically I just grab the rail at the top just to make the drop and slide in there. Once you make that critical slide and adjustment you can stand up and start pumping the same as you would the front side. Look at the wake; they are basically the same pumping tracks. Plus, another reason I rarely hold the rail in the tube is because of Tommy Carroll. I remember this one photo of him at backdoor when I was a kid. No hands in this big backside barrel. That always stuck in my mind as a moment of balls and excellence. And today? I look for that moment every time I drop in.

MG:  How do you feel about laybacks?

BI: I dig ’em. I can still see Matt Archbold doing them in an old movie. They looked so mean. I do ’em whenever I can. It’s like getting a massage by the ocean. I did one in my heat in the contest I just won.

MG: What’s next?

BI: Lunch?

It sounds simple. Goofy even. But it is not. Take a good, long look at the photo accompanying this article. Tube-riding is the most intimate, erotic, emotional act that man has ever perpetrated against and in concert with the world’s oceans.
It is a remarkable act of timing, grace and courage on a tightrope of blue within the Earth’s most dynamic interface: when sea meets land.
It just may be that through tube riding, deep within the elemental magma of their souls, surfers have tapped into one of those rare acts on Earth that allow man a true atavism; an opportunity to return to and to touch, if just for a moment inside the face of a rushing wave, the primal relationship shared with his origin.

Don’t laugh. It could happen to you.

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