Guys, as always thanks for the nice stuff you have said here. But don't be too tough on justride, he even says that I don't "suck or anything like that," which is nice.
In all seriousness, he has some very valid points, and I am sure there are lots of others that are thinking the same thing. So I will do my best to answer some of the issues with the show.
Why didn't Malone, Rick Roy, Marc Sickerling, Pierre Maxient, Pancaker, TC, Gil, Slutty, Darin Anderson or whoever get a shot at this why was it me? Well first off that was a question that I asked, and from what I understand Malone, and Rick Roy were both asked to do a stunt for the show at some point in time and the show was unable to reach an agreement with either of them, I don't know or talk to them but was told this by someone who works on the show. So I apologize to both of them if that is in any way wrong. A good friend of mine who works in the TV industry asked me if I wanted to do a show for them and I said sure lets go for a double back.
We were also on a very tight time frame with the whole process of the show. They wanted to get the show shot and on for this season because they were not sure if they were going to be picked up for a third season (and the were not picked up.) So this brought up two issues, 1) where can we pull a permits on very short notice in CA, and 2) what am I going to do for equipment that would give me a shot at this.
Oceano was chosen as the location basically because of the ability to pull a permit there in about 2 weeks. Hawaii would have been better...or Indo, or just having the ability to ride at a good wave in CA would have been fine. But that was out of the question due to our tight time frame. And for those of you who remember the Freestyle Surf Slam, there was plenty of surf to pull a double there!
For equipment, I am very appreciative to John Dady at Blowsion for sending me down his own personal ski to ride. That boat is a stock hull, but with the motor and trim that was on that ski, it is totally capable of 2 rotations. The ski arrived the day before we were scheduled to begin filming. And unfortunately I think we broke it very shortly after putting it in the water. We wasted a lot of time trying to figure what was wrong with it.
The show was shot over three days. The first two days were spent shooting "the show" meaning interviews, the opening segments, filler riding etc. Plus, were waiting on a south swell to show up that never materialized. So the final day had the worst surf of the three days, and the night before we finally diagnosed the problem with the primary boat. And realized that we were not going to be able to fix it. Plus at that point I just felt that it was a better idea to ride a ski that I knew, instead of swapping a stock motor in to a ski that I did not know. Was that the right decision? Would it have made a difference if I had done that? I don't know...should I have done that. IMO no.
I really did the absolute best that I could on this. And I am in no way trying to make excuses for what I feel was a poor performance. But I did the best I could with what I had. And I hope that all things considered this will be a positive for our sport.
As far as my being the right person to do the show, would I have picked someone else...yea probaly. Do I think I should be one of the people considered for doing something like this...yep.
Anyone, very sweet Ross!