Stab Podcast: Kelly Slater Said “Yes”
How we lassoed a goat for Stab In The Dark X.
This one’s full of unseasonal Easter eggs.
Mikey C and Sam McIntosh hardly had a chance to nod at each other while in Japan for Stab High. While Mikey was soaking up intel from our poolside judges’ panel, Sam was bending over (not backwards) to wrap up filming Stab in the Dark X with Kelly Slater on the Gold Coast.
Sam’s 12-hour stay in Japan wasn’t enough to catch up on the dailies, but the two managed to sit down and touch on what’s coming soon to our Premium audience via The Drop.
Expect the kind of SITD insight you’d love to eavesdrop on — like when you accidentally find yourself within earshot while waiting for a coffee — and some satisfying gossip to go with it.
Mikey profiles this year’s Stab High judges and reveals a soft spot for Lee Wilson, moments before getting Sam’s firsthand account of working with, observing, and waiting for Kelly Slater. According to Sam, waiting and waiting for Kelly should never be a problem. When you’re dealing with a singular human among the 110 billion who’ve walked this blue, spinning rock, that’s just what you do.
Before teasing what other surfboard projects are dropping over the next six months, we learn how shoulder paddlers may have pressured Kelly into doing tighter turns at Snapper Rocks. Could that hack work for the rest of us?
An underlying theme to this ep: where exactly is the line between asshole and idiosyncratic? Are we too quick to judge people like Lee Wilson, Kelly Slater, Laird Hamilton, Albee Layer?
The hosts chime in. So does Albee, who has deep respect for his volleyball-playing uncle but still won’t cower under his wide-casting Peahi shadow. The conversation dips into the latest episode of HSGP featuring Laird, and we get a teaser of what’s coming next in the series.
Before wrapping, they touch on the new Surf100 series and how a YouTuber’s memo is subtly steering its making.
Available wherever you get your podcasts, or by clicking Play above.
The World Doesn’t Deserve Jackson and Shion
Bunch and Crawford go wild at Rockies — and no one’s watching. Yet.
At the time of publishing, Karaage Seas has nary over 4,000 views on YouTube.
A lot is wrong in the world right now, and this low view count can be added to a long, winding list of such things.
Over the span of a month, the freshly axed Jackson Bunch and man of the hour, Shion Crawford, logged many hours at Rocky Point — a wave that looks deceptively soft on screen. It isn’t.
Condensed into roughly four minutes are just some of the highlights from four weeks spent surfing another North Shore reef that tends to get overshadowed by Pipeline, despite easily being a world-class wave.
If you flipped the footage horizontally, you’d be hard-pressed to tell them apart. Jackson and Shion surf with a shared urgency and energy — fast transitions, tight arcs, and stratospheric airs, including one that earned Shion $5,000 and a spot at Stab High Japan during The Bum Rush Masters earlier this year.
A must-watch.
Rio Waida Makes The Case For Keramas On Tour
It's like Lowers, but better.
Rio Waida made his first CT appearance at Keramas in 2019.
Surfing as a wildcard, he finished 17th after a loss to Tahitian Michel Bourez. The event has been canned since.
Currently ranked #13 and safely beyond the Mid-Year Cut, Rio flew from Western Australia back to his Bali home to squeeze in as much surfing as possible during a 10-day workation before heading to Lowers.
As expected of a CT surfer paddling out anywhere in the world, they impress with speed, power, and the ability to place turns and maneuvers on parts of a wave that pedestrian surfers hardly make use of.
In his latest vlog entry/edit, Rio does all that and goes the extra length, putting on a standout performance at Keramas that would have made him a clear favorite if the bowly, punchy right was still on the tour schedule.
Of course, no Bali clip is complete without dreamy Uluwatu and a little Canggu section, which, while overshadowed by the former, serves as an intimidating warning shot to his opponents at Trestles.
No One Turns A Surfboard Like This
Ethan Ewing infiltrates Snapper Rocks with unnerving precision.
A few months back, you may have witnessed the most elegant violence ever inflicted on the Bells Bowl. It lasted about thirty minutes, give or take.
But in it: something awful and perfect. Ethan Ewing doing turns on a surfboard.
“The bar has been set, Leroy,” said Snake Patterson, as Leo Fioravanti waltzed up the Bells stairs.
“Best surfing ever done at the Bowl — that’s what I’m hearing,” said Vaughan Blakey.
Then, gone. Eliminated in the very next heat. Dusted with two 17ths to follow. The spell broke.
Where go, best rail surfing the eyes can see?
Go right here, in the clip above.
It’s hard to picture anyone moving more precisely, while also dishing out this much damage. A thousand-year-old ninja disguised as the Fabio of Stradbroke Island. Above, EE infiltrates Snapper Rocks, the whole heist captured and cut by Dan Scott.
If the lord ever laid a hand on you, you’ll feel it here. If not, this might be the closest you’ll get.
Channel Islands Presses ‘All Team’ Button, Drops 6-Minute Edit
Featuring Eithan Osborne, Cam Richards, Barron Mamiya, Rolo Montes, Imai DeVault, and more.
Ever wonder why the Merricks shape under the Channel Islands banner?
Let’s start at the beginning — not with surfboards, but with humankind, my dear friends. The Channel Islands of California, not to be confused with their tax-havenish cousins near France, are eight windswept slabs off the Southern California coast. Five belong to Channel Islands National Park, sometimes called the Galápagos of the North. The first seafarers from the Pacific crossed to here, made camp, and became the first human inhabitants of North America.
On one of these islands — San Nicolas — a woman lived alone for 18 years. Her people, the Nicoleño, were decimated in an 1811 massacre by contracted Russian sea otter hunters.
Anyhow, the last survivor was Juana Maria, aka The Lone Woman of The Channel Islands. She lived alone for 18 years, made a hut from whale bones and sang to the birds until liberation, or capture, depending on your lens, in 1853. Seven weeks after setting foot on the mainland, dysentery got her at 43.
In 1993, a Floridian man wandered onto a different set of Channel Islands and stood firm for 23 years. Not alone, exactly, but dominant enough to earn the nickname, in some corners, as The Lone Man of Channel Islands.
In 2015, Kelly Slater was liberated, released, extracted — depending on your lens of history, from Channel Islands Surfboards. Just like Juana Maria, he was 43. Not the last of his people, but for two decades, CI and Kelly were one.
After Juana Maria’s exit, the real Channel Islands slowly repopulated. Today, they host 2,609 humans.
Channel Islands Surfboards did the same. After Kelly left, the Merricks kept shaping, the team rebuilt, and the population swelled. Now 20+ strong, they’ve just dropped a new edit to launch their latest board: The Better Everyday.
The board is an evolution of the ‘Happy Everyday,’ which is the board that came to life after finishing second in Taj Burrow’s Stab In The Dark, and has now become one of their best sellers.
But Britt had a few tweaks in mind. So he went back in, softened the hip, threw on a swallow tail, cranked the tail rocker, and drilled five holes for your fins — a choose-your-own-adventure setup, depending on how frisky you’re feeling.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the team has been loving the Better Everyday — see Kian Martin’s first surf on it for reference. And that feeling seems to apply to the everyman as well.
How do we know? Every time we ask what board you’re riding, you mutter Channel Islands. When we pressed you for the best board in the last 24 months, you said CI again. You’ve got the fever. Maybe even the Fever.
The new edit’s up top. It features Eithan Osborne, Cam Richards, Rolo Montes, Barron Mamiya, Lucas Cassidy, Imai DeVault, and a pile of others.
Shop ’em here.
Taylor Steele Wants To Put You Up In A 5-Star Hotel And Show You Movies
Stab Premium members, you might want to pay attention to this.
Stab Premium members, here’s one for the calendar.
Taylor Steele, the the brain behind the Momentum films, is offering a chance to attend the Solento Film Festival in Burleigh Heads, Gold Coast, running Thursday June 12 to Saturday June 14.
The festival is already in full swing. Burleigh’s been taken over — art shows, bands, bars, afterparties, and the Surf of Origin, headlined by a collision between Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson — White Lightning wearing NSW blue, Parko redlining for Queensland. NSW got the nod.
The film portion officially kicks off this Thursday and runs for three nights.
What’s showing:
Thursday
– A Marble In The Jar — Tatiana Weston-Webb, directed by the late Greg Browning and Scott Smith
– What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up? — featuring the Rip Curl Groms
– Stoker Machine
Friday
– Friction Of Perception — A Liam O’Brien film
– Milk and Honey — featuring Steph Gilmore, Caity Simmers, Frankie Harrer, Coco Ho
– The Granny Grommets
Saturday
– Washed — Mikey Wright, Griffin Colapinto, Kanoa Igarashi, Lungi Slabb, Kael Walsh, Hughie Vaughan
– Let Me Live — Featuring Tom Lowe
– Doped Youth
If selected, you’ll get:
– Free VIP tickets to the Thursday (June 12) and Friday (June 13) screenings
– Two nights’ accommodation at the 5-star Mondrian Hotel, for you and a guest
– Access to the full shebang: films, music, surf, tequila-fuelled conversations
Saturday’s screening isn’t included, but you’re welcome to grab a ticket if you want to keep the run going.
To enter:
Fill out this four-question survey. It’ll take approximately 17 seconds.
Important: Please only enter if you’re certain you can attend. Spots are limited and we want these to go to people who’ll actually show up.
Watch: More Lowers Warm-Ups From Jordy Smith, Al Cleland, Ethan Ewing, And Co
And, will Lowers run tomorrow?
In our Premium comp preview, we said they would run the first day of competition at the Lexus Trestles Pro today.
They did not.
Courtesy of a slightly late south swell and a lot of decent looking days in the forecast, the WSL opted to hold their fire on the first day of the window — despite some fun looking chest high sets.
Tomorrow, the swell jumps up quite a bit — from 2ft @ 15 sec to 2.5ft @ 17 sec — so we’re expecting they’ll run (for real this time.)
Gamble Ramble
Mikey C is coming off his best event of the year on betonline.ag. Will he slip up on the cobblestones?
Event winner
$50 on Filipe at +450 to win $225
$30 on Yago at +1400 to win $420
$10 on Cole at +5000 to win $500
$10 on Jake Marshall at +2500 to win $250
$10 on Kanoa at +1600 to win $160
$50 on Caity at +350 to win $175
$20 on Sawyer at +2000 to win $4002025 season earnings: $2,986
Pipe: $441
Abu Dhabi: $102
Portugal: $54
El Salvador: $799
Bells: $0
Gold Coast: $120
Margaret River: $1,470
‘Snapt 5’ World Premiere Will Happen During The US Open of Surfing
And here's how you might just end up in the thick of it all.
It’s (almost) here.
Logan Dulien has had an absurdly busy couple of years. Besides voluntarily taking on unpaid work to dismantle an International Crime Syndicate, “Chucky” has been producing and directing the final installment of the Snapt series, the first of which was originally released in 2002.
Snapt 5: The Final Cut will have its official premiere and release on August 2nd at Sealegs in Huntington Beach, during the US Open of Surfing. Andre Nickatina will also be performing live at the event.
On August 1st, the Snapt 5 cast will come together for a meet and greet at Bear Flag Fish Co., where one fortunate Stab Premium member (all Premium members are automatically entered into the draw) will win a seat at the dinner table with around 20 of the best surfers on the planet, plus two tickets to the premiere.
At the time of writing, Yago Dora and Jack Robbo’s parts are being edited, while James Kates and Noa Deane are putting the finishing touches on Noa’s section. An official trailer will be dropping at the end of this month.
Premiere tickets are now available to purchase here.
Snooze, you lose.
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