Sam Smart - Profile

recent coverage

A few recent shots from various uk magazines e.t.c

2009 HEADWORX WINTER CATALOGUE

out soon !

Pit Pilot - Wetsuit Guide intro

bulldog add

used in 'The surfers path, Wavelength, Carve and Pitpilot surfing magazines

Pitpilot, East Anglia article

photo shoot and story , Jan/Feb Pit pilot surf magazine

'Pit pilot' surf Mag

November issue

'Slide' double page

A rare solid swell that hit , mid audust

Full story 'Western Morning News'

Western Morning News (front page).

Press from my trip to Great Yarmouth-Surfing on the highest flood tide in 50 years.

The same shot and story also in the 'Daily Mail'

Relentless Advert

Relentless advert, double page in Carve,Wavelength and pitpilot

Beside a jetty with "Danger Keep Off" in yard-high letters on one wall, surfer Sam Smart was out on his board.

Mr Smart, who runs a Cornish surf school and is a runner-up in UK surf finals, drove to Gorleston- on-Sea from his native Sennen Cove when he heard about the swell. He spent 90 minutes in heaving seas and crashing waves and declared it "great fun". Not that elsewhere, things didn't come close to disaster. At one stage the waters of the River Yare were all but lapping at the underside of bridges in Yarmouth. As it edged up the walls, that big puddle was just inches away from being turned into a swamp which would have engulfed large parts of the town.

2007 Tide Table

C-Skins tide table with Wavelength surf magazine

Slide surf magazine

double page in Shapy's slide

Carve surf magazine

Photo in 'carve' from Portugal photo shoot

lookin ard for 'wavelength'

photo by Greg Martin

The Times online (Article by Alex Wade www.timesonline.co.uk/surfnation )

Sam Smart: the Sennen local who punches as hard as he surfs Surfing or boxing - which would you choose? Sennen Cove's Sam Smart is one of the few people who might one day have to make this decision. The 26-year-old goofy-footer is not only a highly-regarded professional surfer, but also an amateur boxer whose growing mastery of the sweet science could soon yield an offer to turn pro. Smart's double-life as a boxer - he has won all nine of his bouts so far, seven by KO - is surely unparalleled in British surfing. While Jersey free surfer and big wave charger Ian Battrick is an amateur boxer - as was long-time Newquay standout Jamie Owen - there do not appear to be any other surfers who have demonstrated such ability at two ostensibly unrelated sports. Boxing and surfing, indeed, would not appear to be naturally compatible. The conventional image of surfing is of a free-spirited, hedonistic activity, one whose sole purpose is the enactment of the pleasure principle. Boxing, on the other hand, involves hours of training, immersion in a disciplined and hard world, and the prospect either of hurting someone else or taking a few shots yourself. How, then, does Smart combine the two at all, let alone to such a high level?

"Both surfing and boxing are addictive but healthy," says the Newlyn-born southpaw, who boxes out of Camborne and Redruth Amateur Boxing Club. "Surfing is like a drug, but a good one - you're stoked for days after a session. It's therapy. Boxing is different, sure, but the adrenalin it produces - the rush - is similar. I think the two sports help each other - they both require co-ordination, balance, explosive power and a high level of fitness."

Smart announced that he wanted to box at the age of six, and by wanting to do so was following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. In taking up surfing, though, in his early teens, he started to set an example of his own. The eldest of three brothers, in his teens Smart spent up to eight hours at a time in the water, and soon started to translate that level of dedication to competition success. His brothers, Lew, 24, and Seb, 14, saw what he was doing and wanted to emulate it. Lew is now a bodyboarder, sponsored by Headworx, while Seb, as the winner of the British Under 12 and Under 14 titles, is one the country's hottest young surfers.

Smart himself counts Relentless, Surftech and C-Skins Suits as his sponsors, and this year plans to put as much energy as he can into the BPSA Tour. At the same time, that is, as competing in the Amateur Boxing Association (ABA) Novice Championships in April. Success here would set Smart on a mission - to win the Senior ABA title next season.

Boxing as a middleweight Smart has some tough fights ahead of him, given the vitality of this division in the current ABA scene. But he also has what all boxers yearn for, as much as surfers dream of perfect point breaks: a knock-out punch. "I've knocked seven of my opponents out cold," he says, adding that "when I'm sparring, I'm relaxed and composed, but when the bell goes for a bout, I get straight in. I want to win, and I want to knock the other guy out."

Smart's ferocity in the ring is belied by an easy-going, friendly nature, one moulded by the strong sense of community among the Sennen Cove surfers. From the age of 17, for six years, Smart was a lifeguard at Sennen and Gwenver, and his intimate knowledge of the beach is now applied to teaching surfing through www.bluelagoonsurf.com. Smart's surf school is situated next to the Blue Lagoon fish and chip shop - which his parents own - on the beachfront at Sennen, and its emphasis is strongly on safety. "We teach people in maximum groups of five," says Smart. "I don't agree with any higher ratios - people just don't get the attention they need." Girls Group sessions are run by sister Amanda Smart, one of the UK's best female surfers.

2007 is set to be busier than ever for Smart, as he throws himself into the BPSA, runs his surf school and pushes himself as far as he can go with his boxing. What, though, would he rather do - surf or box? Which, if given the choice, would he prefer - winning an ASP World Title at Pipeline, or a unified middleweight crown at Madison Square Garden?

Smart pauses. The question is not easy to answer, but this is a man who combines a grounded sense of the possibilities before him with the top sportsman's unquenchable desire to succeed. "I don't think it's realistic for me, as a British surfer, to think of winning an event at Pipeline. Maybe it'll happen one day for an up-and-coming Brit, but it's tough surfing here - we don't have machine-like reefs and points that fire up all the time, we have mostly beachbreaks that shift and change. Conditions here mean that you can't refine your surfing in the way that many overseas surfers can. But boxing - boxing's different. We've had plenty of world champions and there's no reason why we won't have some more. I'm happy to combine the boxing and surfing for now, but it's true, I love boxing and I want to take it as far as I can."

You get the feeling that if his dreams could come true Smart might just plump for Madison Square Garden. But if you get to go surfing after serving your time in the hardest game, that doesn't seem a bad choice.

See www.bluelagoonsurf.com and www.relentlessenergy.com for more information