INNOVATIONS

WE AIN'T GOT HOVERBOARDS OR FLYING CARS YET BUT THE WORLD SURE HAS CHANGED A BUNCH SINCE WE STARTED IN 1994.

Jet skis: Skis changed big wave surfing forever. In performance terms they allowed previously unpaddleable waves to be ridden. Once the big wave surfers psychologically had broken that barrier, they went back to paddling them running jet skis as safety cover.

Surf Forecasting: Back in the day gurus would forecast swells from basic isobar charts printed in the posh newspapers, or the BBC radio shipping forecast in the case of the North Sea. If you knew what you were doing and kept on top of it everyday you could get it pretty accurate and be the only one out at dawn. The only way to see decent charts was to pay for a weather fax that got you four days worth of pressure maps. These days information is a click away. To be honest the old ways are still more accurate than some of the new websites. The pros are everyone goes off the forecast as infallible so if you know what you are doing you can still score when the forecasts are out, and they are OK as a general guide. Downsides - overcrowding.