Watch and Listen: Malia Manuel Has a Go at The Box!

Earlier this week, we tackled an existential query: when greeted with 6-8 foot offshore conditions in the lead-up to a CT, should you surf at Main Break Margaret River or The Box?

Surfers’ responses to this question varied wildly, and for good reason. Everyone is in a different stage of their year, life, and career. While some (like Griffin Colapinto) are more focused on having fun and milking every last drop out of tour life, others (like Mikey Wright) can feel the season slipping between their fingers and are doing everything they can to hold on.

One thing I couldn’t help but notice is that no females surfed The Box on that first, gorgeous day in WA. This is interesting, considering the trajectory of the women’s tour. They surfed Pipe in the first event of the year, they’re heading to Tahiti in August, and clearly there’s a push to have females compete in waves that the WSL once (literally until last year) considered male-only.

Nowhere fits that description more than The Box.

If you ask CT-coach-turned-podcaster-turned-board-tester-turned-WSL-shill Stace Galbraith, the women will more likely than not surf The Box in this year’s Margaret River event. To our knowledge, none of them (barring perhaps Bronte Macaulay) have ever surfed the wave before, jersey or no. So a pretty salient case could be made for why they should get out there before the comp starts.

Enter Malia Manuel (who just so happens to be Stace’s star pupil).

On the day before the event started (and conveniently after we recorded this pod), Malia made the 711.85-meter journey from Main Break to The Box to try her hand. The results were commendable by any standard.

See above, and listen to why we think it’s pivotal that more women put in time at waves of incontinence on the Stab CUSP. Available at your local farmer’s market.