One man down

The Midnight runners crew

From left, Woodsy (alias Postman Pat (and his black and white cat), Grant Ratman, Jay Han Solo, Heath Sheath (alias cutts cutter)..Johan (alias kojak, not in pic)..

As of last week the guy on the right Heath Sheath bailed out and headed home to Oz..boohoo..we are now one man down and have to try harder to motivate each other to go surfing in 4 deg water and howling snowstorms..it was fun will it lasted mate.. ;-) peace from the midnight runners!

some old time photos of a life before crowds

solomon islands

little narrabeen firing on all cylinders

have dreads will travel

south oz me and mick mendoza ..... no-one else out anywhere, 86

henio (on the left) on the way to Lisbon airport 91, coyt and sappy... darkness

our van, note the plastic doll parts) we collected them off the beaches and then tied them onto other surfers cars.. eurotrip 89-91

secret sydney, 4 days straight no-one out

secret sydney as above

glassing the board i made in england...lacanau 89 with the french guy coyt and sappy

my surf shop manly oz 91

rat, dreads and filthy slab death pits@ 86-87

one of the early boards i made

monkey on shoulder,bali 85

rat and kids, oz '06

van life eurotrip with coyt 89-90-91

view of nats shop @84

huge ulu's, that's me paddling in the circle!

have didge will travel, coyt playing my didge somewhere in asia, 87-89

rat at nats shop @84-85

mundaca 89 with coyt

nats shop, the final chapter 89 before leaving for europe, note the jah board on the ground to the right..one of my shapes and one of my favourite boards ever

one of the first ever simon anderson 'thrusters' bought from the man himself

the 'chiba surf team' chiba japan 87

proudly holding a gun i shaped in newquay england '89, i wrapped it in a blanket and took it to lacanau and glassed it in the first ever surfboard shop there, a small shed. We couldn't communicate at all 'cause he couldn't speak english and we couldn't speak one word of french so we drank wine and had a blast together. the pic of us standing in his shed is further up in the earlier pics.

biiig ulus, it was an epic day with just me and a few brave,(stupid) souls out..It got bigger and bigger and bigger as the day went on with no breaks at all in the waves..just one continuous never ending, ever growing SET..when the tide came up it made it extremely dificult,with the 30km/hr sweep happening, to time the return into the cave to get out of the water..if you missed the cave you were well and truly stuffed!!

Swedish Surfing Associations 1st ever training camp

Sweden's first ever training camp was held in Norway. I was the leader for the weekend, first I fixed a pile of damaged boards that had flown off a car then we did some theory, did some beach training and had some fun, here's some pics finishing with a crossover hang five by the rat..yehooo

hahaha the old man wins the race..yeeeeesssss

the team

Shit is it snowing?

Wow ratty i would have never guessed it was snowing............. Cutts

Im so Farken Retarded!

We Finally Scored

On Wednesday, Woodsy and I got in the car again and drove the mandatory 2hrs to the surf after checking the prognosis. Heath was in France surfing, Jay and Johan had to work so Woodsy and I had to do the 2hr trip as partners in crime.. ;-)

We weren't disappointed. We arrived to 4-5ft lefts 100m long lefts with just one guy out when we arrived and a few more that turned up after a while but there were heaps of waves coming in so everyone got surf and Woodsy and I surfed for 5½ hrs. There were even a couple of sneaky barrells coming thru for those that were lucky and also on the ball!

I, being the 'short term memory loss king', took both my new digital video camera and my camera to work in the morning to charge them and forgot them when I left to drive to the surf ...duuuhhhhhh!!

The surf just got better and better and it was ashame that it got dark cause it got really good the last hour before dark..looks like autumn has started. thank god for that!

Now it looks like it's gunna be really good this week coming as well..this time we'll make sure we get some really good pics..will updaate soon! peace from da ratman

FLATTEST EVER

We have had the flattest ever start to any year this year..there hasn't been ONE surfable swell yet and we have normally surfed quite a bit by this time of year..
We went to Norway at the end of April and got a few nice sessions in but the weather was miserable so we didn't get any surf shots at all..
We are depressed and praying that something will come up for us to surf on soon, we normally go for our annual midnight sun surf so i hope we get one this year to uphold the tradition..DA RAT

Euro championships

(Da rat)

Shit sorry guys, it's been a long long break for us..we've been tied up in family for a while but we are now on the boil again I promise. Alot has happened since I wrote last. In September last year (2009) I was appointed as Team Manger for the Swedish Surf Team..(haha some may say...but we went to Jersey in the Channel Islands and we KICKED ARSE!!) not just in the competition sense but also in the party sense!!

I arrived in Jersey with an ozzie 'swedish' team member Craig Shearer (alais sheepo from the gold coast) after drinking a 'few' beers on the plane and met a completely new group of people.(AKA. The Swedish Surf Team, 2-3 of them i knew from before)..Over a period of a week we became a team and showed the whole of Europe what the Swedes are made of..we had a ball both in and out of the water!!

The surf was tragically crap, unfortunately. If it had been good, the competition would have been over in a few days and the rounds of golf I had arranged with some of the other team managers from different countries would have been realised., and some really good surf sesssions would have been recorded by me..but not to be..

Instead we spent a week waiting in the foyer of the hotel for the organisers to ring us,(we were on standby), while the ½ft surf dribbled in. Sad really cause the day before we arrived the surf was cranking and the whole week we were there for the comp it was just pathetic to say it politely. Such is life!

We had some hilarious and triumphant and (sad times) though..In the Open division, (with 85 entrants),we kicked arse and against Europe's best surfers we had one guy landing at 13th place and another at 25th!..Not bad from a country with absolutely no funding or government backing! We also saw some of our best surfers knocked out it horrendous surf..I MEAN UNSURFABLE surf, when they really had a chance to go further..(some heats were so bad that the winner was the one who caught more than 1 wave!!!!!)

All in all Sweden posted it's BEST reult EVER in the euro championships.

On the last night I had prearranged a karaoke night at one of the local pubs and took the team on a surprise mission..It was hilarious and apart from the odd 'terrible but hilarious' attempts to sing there was some REAL talent in the crew..One guy sand 'whole lotta love' from led Zeppelin and just slamdunked it good..we found out later he's the lead singer of a popular band in Malmö..nobody knew..hahaha..We had also linked up with the Irish surf team and they came along as well and the whole pub was just goin ARF.. it ws a huge night and really good fun.
during the week, on one of the many flat days, we hired the local flowrider and had a ball together as well..
The whole trip was a flop surfwise but a great time and many new friends were made and good times had.
Peace from team captain rat!