The mad and unorthodox quiver of Jamie O’Brien

Interview by Jake Howard

Jamie O’Brien’s the king of untraditional fun. He’s a true believer in the “ride everything” mentality. And that train of thought isn’t the typical longboards, shorties, asymms, fishes, guns and finless planks. It’s more about couches, kayaks, waterskis, hamster wheels and the obviously dangerous SUP Squatch, all of which he tests runs in pumping Pipeline. Today’s conversation with Mr O’Brien is as follows:

Stab: What’s happening, Jamie?
JOB: We’re thinking of going skiing today.

I didn’t know you were in California?
I’m not. I’m at home. We can’t figure out if we want to go out to Phantoms and the outer reefs or we just going to wait for it to get a little too big for all the surfers here at Pipeline and take over.

We’re writing a list of everything you’ve ridden out at Pipe.
Hmm, that’s going to be kind of a long list.

Yeah, he still enjoys it. Photo: Laserwolf

Traditional surfboard:
Believe it or not, I still enjoy riding a regular board out there.

Soft-top:
They work surprisingly well, especially at Backdoor…they’re great for board transfers too.

Boogie board:
It’s how I hurt my ankle earlier this year. You can get so barreled on a boogie board at Pipe.

Bully board:
It’s pretty much a giant boogie board.

“All about that couch surfing life!” Photo: @honuwhisperer

Couch:
One of our finer moments.

Hamster Wheel:
A new addition to the arsenal.

SUP Squatch:
Everybody gets catapulted into each other. Everyone has paddles, it’s pretty chaotic and dangerous. You can get hurt.

Inflatable raft:
Sometimes you gotta go big-wave, white-water rafting.

Inflatable inner-tube:
For the shore break.

Body surf:
It’s how we all start.

Lunch trays:
Of course.

Kayak:
Once the kayak rolls it can compress you on the reef. So you’ll be pinned on the reef with a kayak on top of you, which is kinda gnarly. But it worked incredible. You can get a legit barrel in a kayak.

Skis:
I didn’t actually wear the skis. To me the scariest thing we’ve done was Poops pulling into the the barrel on skis. It was heavy.