The Stab Interview: Ace Buchan 

Two minutes after I ended the call with Glenn Hall, the text messages began. 

We’d just spoken for 20 mins about Ace Buchan. 

“For someone like Ace that’s had 16 years on tour,” he’d said, “and not just being on tour, but giving as much back to the sport as he has through the WSL, WPS, and just representing surfing, it’s weird that his retirement hasn’t been a bigger deal.” 

Glenn — Ace’s travel companion, coach and lifelong friend — and Ace’s wife Beck organized Buchan’s retirement party back in March. Now he was about to start blowing up my phone with things he’d forgotten to mention on the call. 

The term “under appreciated” kept coming up. 

But my favorite and potentially most telling message wasn’t about how well he bounced back from numerous injuries, beat Kelly in two finals, and has the ability to connect with everyone from local groms to billionaire CEOs, it was this one, about Ace’s upbringing:

You know what I reckon needs to be told too is his pathway as a junior. He barely surfed due to his schooling commitments.

He caught a train to and from school in Sydney 5 days a week. 20 minutes drive to the station, 1 hour train ride each way. Very occasionally he would get a 20 minute afternoon surf after school right before dark. Then had to do a school sport on Saturdays. He would surf Saturday arvo and Sunday.

And Ace wasn’t fluffing around in those 20 minute surfs, he would be hungrier than anyone to maximise each surf with purpose.  I reckon that shit would blow the minds of the soccer parents out there pushing their kids to surf 10 hours a day everyday 

With this fresh in my mind, I spoke to Ace about that time in his life. 

STAB: How long did that last? 
Ace Buchan: From 13 years old to 18. I was famous for running down in the evenings to surf in that last 20 minutes of light, just so excited. I really cherished the opportunity to surf. Whereas I had a lot of peers that had ample time, were homeschooled, or [had] less school, and didn’t really value it like I did.

It taught me the value of the time you’ve got, and it made me hungry. 

You must’ve had crazy FOMO.
I remember I made the Aussie Team — with Mick, Joel, myself, Shaun Cansdell, and a couple of others — and had the opportunity to go to the World Titles at Makaha, but had to skip it to sit my final year exams. It’s crazy to look back on, but even then I knew it was the right thing to do. [Ace scored 93 out of 100]

Does it trip you out, to look at the kids today, in comparison?
It’s a different sport now. The level at a young age is higher. But I do worry, because at the end of the day, the overwhelming majority of these kids — especially with less money in the industry — are being spat out the other end without much to show for it. I even look at myself, and fuck, I just had a long, successful career, but once you’re done, you don’t hear much from the Tour. That’s it, they’ve got their own agenda. You’ve got to create a pathway for yourself.

So what, are you done-done? 
I’m really grateful to be well supported by JS and a handful of great companies to go chase good waves and tell stories, but yes, I’m retiring from full-time competition.

The last time we spoke, it felt premature to retire just because of the circumstances [of the pandemic]. With the passage of time, I started realizing that pro surfing wasn’t who I am, it was something I did, and I’ve got a lot of exciting things happening in my life.

And looking at the Tour, the destination isn’t what it used to be, or the place to have a young family. It looks different now. 

Do you mean that your life looks different, or the Tour looks different?
Both. I mean, I love the WSL. The ASP, and then WSL, gave me the canvas to chase my dreams, and live out many of those dreams. But I don’t look at it now and go, “Man, I wish I was there.” 

The schedule is different. When and where the events happen. There’s this midyear cut. And I look at it and go, “Wow, that would be quite difficult for me, in my position, to do that.” And obviously you’ve seen my peer group guys like Owen, and Julian, and Michel all have a somewhat similar experience.

It’s no use fighting for something that doesn’t exist anymore.

But isn’t that just the natural order of things, where the older guard is nudged out by the younger crew? Or is there something within the Tour structure that accelerates that?
There is a natural order to that happening, and then there was that forcing function of the world stopping, and then there was this rejig of the Tour, which made people question their place in it. 

I remember talking to you back in 2017 or 18, when you were the surfers’ rep, and you mentioned the WSL was looking to make a lot of crazy changes that you and the surfers were pushing back on. Were those the changes we’re seeing today?
Yeah, the big ones were obviously the midyear cut and the final series. And when the world stalled during the pandemic, I think they thought, “All right, this is the moment to shake things up.” 

It had been spoken about for some time. They’re always looking at ways to run the events in shorter windows, which is obviously going to cost less, but also, potentially, allow them to maximize good waves. Now that they’ve gone through that exercise, they’ve probably realized that, in practice, that doesn’t always turn out to be the case. Whenever you run a surf event, you’re at the whim of mother nature. 

Right.
They talked about the midyear cut being a partnership, but I think most felt that it wasn’t in the best interest of the surfers, or the fans for that matter. And you’ve seen that play out. Kelly fell off tour. Steph was bloody close. You’ve got the two current world number ones that didn’t make the midyear cut last year. So it’s like, is this undermining the format, or is it adding to it? I would argue that it’s undermining the format. 

The WSL is aware of all this. I’d be surprised if they don’t look to make some sensible tweaks to the format. Whether that’s pushing the cut out a few events, or changing the location of the finals. But look, at the end of the day it’s still a product that we’re all watching, and we’re excited about. 

It’s such a difficult thing to reconcile. If they were making money hand over fist, it’s one of those things where you could say, “Hey, you didn’t need to do this.” But I see their position: “This isn’t a sustainable business, so we need to throw some spaghetti at the wall, and see what sticks.”
Yeah. Obviously the Tour wasn’t in a place three or four years ago where they could keep doing the same thing and expect it to sustain itself. So they had to look at changes, which they were quite open about. It was quite brave of them to implement all of that stuff at once.

For the surfers’ rep, and everyone involved in making these decisions, you’re always trying to balance that need for financial sustainability with the well being of the stakeholders, whether that’s the surfers, sponsors, coaches… 

It’s a tough needle to thread.
For sure, and when you don’t have a 100% visibility of the financials, you don’t have the whole picture. Stab has done a pretty good job trying to paint that picture, as well. Like, “There are financial realities to this tour. Fans might want to see X, but the reality is that we’ve got to give you Y to continue to give you a tour.” 

In a perfect world, how would your final year on tour have played out?
I got to chair up a lot of my friends who finished their careers at Pipe. That was the way it was back then. Taj finished big in Fiji. You were with me on the stairs at Bells for Mick’s final event. 

My last heat was in Mexico. There were no fans on the beach. I didn’t have my family. I woke up the next day, and they were like, “Oh. Yeah, Tahiti’s canceled.” It was weird.

But looking back, I actually had my ideal retirement year in 2019, I just didn’t know it at the time. I had my wife and three kids on the road. We traveled everywhere from the Gold Coast, to Europe, to Lemoore, to Lowers, France, Hawaii, Portugal.

I had some great results, surfing excellent waves. And I look back on that and go, “Wow, what a fucking great opportunity, to share what I love doing with my family. And visit all these incredible places. And do it for a whole year.” I mean, you can dream about winning events, and going out with a bang, but that’s not always reality.

Any moments that stand out?
I remember going up to the Surf Ranch that last year. The family had rented a house in San Clemente, and they were going to stay there, thinking, “It will be too hot for the kids up there, I’ll just go up.” But Beck didn’t want to be by herself, and I wanted the kids with me. So we decided to just do it as a family. 

It was kind of ironic, because that event is a full pressure cooker, where people are overthinking every square inch of that wave, and how to surf it, and what board to ride. And then I look up in the competitors’ area, and I’ve got my three-year-old daughter, Indy, yelling out at the top of her lungs, “Go Dad!” with the biggest smile on her face.

As hard as it was traveling with family, there were times when it actually diffused all that pressure and reminded you why you were there.

How were you able to have such a long career? 
The Tour is about making yourself comfortable all around the world, 10 months of the year. At least, that’s what it was for us. And I think I was able to make homes everywhere, and genuinely be excited whether I was going to Brazil, Tahiti, or everywhere in between.

From a competitive sense, I was methodical with my strengths and weaknesses, and how to use them in a heat. I genuinely went into every heat with a belief that I could, if not out-surf my opponent, outthink, and out-compete them. I was able to play that game really well.

How are you spending your time these days?
This morning I got barreled before the sun was up, came home and made some lunchboxes and dropped the kids to school, then took some work calls. I’m thinking of another surf before school pick-up. 

What are “work calls” for Ace Buchan?
I’m a foundation board member at Surfers For Climate, and I’m consulting with them on partnerships and strategy. It feels more tangible to be on the frontlines engaging with our stakeholders and interacting with individuals at our community events. Nobody is perfect, ourselves included, and we all have a different journey into activism and unique roles to play, but together our voices are more powerful. 

I’m also working for [wave-pool developer] Aventuur, basically spending half of my working week on that, which is super exciting. I think there’s an opportunity to inject surf culture, and a love of surfing, and pass on the gift of surfing, but to try and do that in a really careful way. Because I don’t necessarily think everyone in this space will be doing it the right way.

Can you give some concrete examples of what that looks like in practice?
It’s a tension, right? The ocean is free, and it’s always going to be the home of surfing, but then you could also argue that wave pools kind of democratize waves, in a different sense. Because in the ocean, maybe five percent of the crowd’s probably controlling 95% of the waves, whether you’re more local, more skilled, or stronger.

Whereas in a surf park, whether you go to Kelly’s Ranch, or the URBN Surf, or the Surf Lakes, or wherever, everyone’s got the same opportunity to ride the same waves. For people who are beginning their lifelong journey in surfing, that’s exciting.

Then there’s surf therapy. I’ve done a bit of it, from Cape Town, to Europe, to Oz, to San Francisco. And I think the whole notion of “blue health” is really powerful, and is only now being fully understood. It could be a great way for a surf park to give back to the community. 

Tell me about your “retirement” party.
I never would have planned something like that for myself. I feel incredibly lucky to have good friends and family who did that for me, namely Beck and Micro. 

Any ex-athlete will tell you that the transition isn’t straightforward. I really miss all the places we were lucky enough to call second homes and I hope to visit them all again. You have quite high-highs and low-lows, and life can seem to level out a bit until you are able to distance yourself from judging your self worth on your results, and see that newfound vulnerability as an opportunity to grow. I’ve realized that a lot of the same things are still what really makes me tick — family, friends, travel, culture, food and of course good waves. So I’m trying to design a life that allows me to do all of that. 

As for the party itself, it was a little overwhelming to have all these people who have had such an influence on my life and career in the one room. I feel like you get that at your wedding and maybe at your funeral, if you lived a good life. To get it at this in-between moment where I got to thank everyone for supporting me on my journey was so special.

We were essentially these kids that all had the same dream and had to overcome obstacles and endure hardships together to live out those dreams. 

It’s often these moments away from competition that stand out.