ADDICTION
We all crave the same feeling. Some call it an addiction, others call it a lifestyle. Whether or not your living close to the sea, once you pass a certain point there is no going back. For some of us the path had led us shorebound, but some have decided to stay inland.
We found different ways to carve on water, sometimes frozen sometimes fluid, but this specific form has been a mystery for a while. With some exceptions, the salty minds never really craved the constant flux of a rapid. Waves come and go and shift with tides and winds.
Not all of them.
Rapid Surfing isn’t something new and it has seen an exponential growth over the past 10 years. Its pioneers, as well as next generations have searched and developed ways to surf inland. With artificial pools constantly pumping water onto a floater, the evolution of the perfect slide has given the land locked an opportunity to glide without ever having paddled against the oceans bare force.
It's been an evolution similar, comparable to its bigger brothers' competitive nature. The scene has started to compete and travel around the world to show off perfectly executed ways of airborne maneuvers, also athletes are starting to be recognized by the mainstream surf media and industry.
With the opening of Europe's biggest artificial river wave, based in the middle of the Austrian alps, surfing has gained a playground for the inlanders. Maybe we should try to look at this in a unique perspective. Even though, placed beneath the forest and the mountain peaks artificial rapids never offer the picturesque blank canvas the ocean provides to the eye of the beholder, when at the same time it provides the blank canvas of glide to the artist carving endless lines of joy.
Surfers: Laura Haustein, Diego Mangold, Loor Ganchozo
Shot over consecutive mornings during the long, recent run of North Coast autumn swell, In the Family of Things is Dave Rastovich in his element, doing his thing.