The Truth Behind The Bogan, D-Bah Saves The Day, Mick and Kerrzy Play, and More!

Welcome back to No Contest, Stab and Red Bull’s culturally ravenous travel series, tugging at the cuffs of the World Championship Tour. 

This year, Stab‘s very own Ashton Goggans has been tapped with host duties, with veteran No Contest (pr)editor Jacob “Woody” Wooden on the sticks, alongside Sam Moody and Dylan Roberts. On our first episode of the 2019 series, they’ll take you on a proper tour of the Gold Coast with one of its most beloved native beasts, a man known formally as Bear, aka John Cummings – a standout behind the rock at Snapper, and one of Mick Fanning and Josh Kerr’s most reliable comrades. 

Since Snapper was, as Bear describes it, “basically a shipping terminal,” we get a proper dose of D-Bah, the area’s most consistent wave, which Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew claims is good “300 days a year… D-Bah’s an insane wave, just A-frame peaks up and down the beach…”

While roping, right-hand sand point tubes will always be the sweetest meat on the bone, we’ll be the first to admit it’s damned entertaining watching the world’s best dismantle dreamy, relatable beachbreak wedges. 

It ain’t the Superbank, but that don’t phase Carissa Moore’s super bank of the lip at the D-Bah wall.

Photography

Trevor Moran / @tallteef

Jordy Smith, lifting off during an afternoon D-Bah freesurf.

Photography

Trevor Moran / @tallteef

While Urban Dictionary describes the Australian Bogan as “a fascinating beast,” we’ll hear what some of the world’s best surfers think of the (sub-?)species, before going behind the scenes with Josh Kerr, Harry Bryant, and the Red Bull Airborne posse, as the boys huck “proper punts” off D-Bah’s voluptuous if lumpy peaks, and hear from the commissioner himself as to which of the finalist’s massive lofts should have gotten the nod. 

Red Bull Airborne finalist Mateus Herdy, hucking a backside full-rote into the flats at Duranbah.

Photography

Trevor Moran / @tallteef

With the contest bringing the hordes to the Superbank, and the event closing down D-Bah, Ashton hits the road hoping to beat the crowds with two of the tour’s most recent retirees, Kerrzy and Mick Fanning, for a session each, at one of the area’s more mysto reefs, and a morning just across the harbor from D-Bah with MF and his new soft boards. 

We meet up with Jason Stevenson, aka JS, and his star-studded team—Joel Parkinson, Occy, Jeremy Flores, Sally Fitz, Julian Wilson, Mikey Wright, Ace Buchan—for a day dialing in their quivers for the 2019 World Tour at an undisclosed beach break. before closing the first episode of this year’s series with a proper feed at Fins, one of JS’ favorite local haunts, a world-class Kingscliff seafood joint, owned by his dear old friend Snowy, “super chef” Steven Snow, who drags Sally Fitz into the kitchen for a lesson in preparing “local, line-caught” fish for her long-time shaper. 

Hitting the road with our friends at Red Bull, Stab‘s frothing to be on tour this year, tapping each stop for its most culturally rich arteries. Welcome to No Contest 2019. 

Often a bridesmaid, still yet the bride, Gold Coast runner-up Kolohe Andino, racing a D-Bah right.

Photography

Trevor Moran / @tallteef