It’s funny how we relate to some people’s surfing more than others’.

“I grew up studying surf videos,” Dane Reynolds said on StabMic, “wanting to surf like Taylor Knox, Justin Poston, whoever.”

No one saw that coming.

Dane continued: “I don’t know who kids are looking up to now, or who they’re psyched to try to replicate.”

We tend to gravitate toward surfers with similar body types or styles, maybe because we believe we see a bit of ourselves in them.

If a surfboard test features a regular footer, goofyfooters feel unrepresented. Use a tall guy, and the short kings revolt. Go smaller, and the comments fill with height jokes. You can’t win.

When CI launched Mikey’s Shorty, Mikey was the obvious main character. But, at 6’3” and 185 pounds, he’s not exactly a universal reference point.

CI’s solution (not that Solution) was casting, and giving everybody a bit of everyone on their international team: different approaches, different styles, female, male, a full spread of sizes. From proper units like Gabe Morvil at 6’2”, 200 pounds, down to supergrom Ale Dotti at 4’5”, 73 pounds dripping wet.

Their stock dims cover a generous range, too.

Pick your avatar.

It’s hard to find a story much stranger than that of surfing becoming an Olympic sport, which goes a little bit like this: 

In 1969, a man named Fernando was born in Argentina. He started a sandal company that used photos of wonderfully curved women to market its products. It worked. He got rich and could focus on his other passions. 

Curiously, he proved to be most passionate about two things: funny hats and the idea of surfing in the Olympics. 

Fast forward to 2021, and there is surfing on an empty beach in Japan, looking like it normally does, but this time with the gravity of an ancient Greek sporting tradition weighing down on it. 

As a knock-on effect, those organizations that had been propping up tents and running (mostly) youth contests for decades, had to suddenly report to the International Olympic Committee. 

One such organization was USA Surfing, but an audit revealed they were doing it poorly, and temporarily surrendered their status as an Olympic National Governing Body, or NGB. 

Last year, a cashed-up ski federation run by a former WSL CEO tried to swoop in with a bid to govern American Olympic surfing. Backlash ensued, and support for USA Surfing poured in from just about everywhere — including the WSL CEO, the aforementioned ISA prez, and some world champs. Eventually, the ski crew realized they’d veered off piste, but it didn’t mean USA Surfing would automatically get re-certified. 

This week, however, the light finally flickered from yellow to green. 

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At this point in the story, you may be wondering what it means to be the National Governing Body for Olympic Surfing. Beyond propping up tents and running (mostly) youth surf events, they’ve got to provide coaching, infrastructure, and support for the nation’s best surfers in a way that ensures more of those ‘best surfers’ exist in the future. 

The reward for all this? Well, you get to walk into the Kellogg’s office and ask them if they’d care to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to partner with the United States’ Olympic surf team heading into a year in which Los Angeles will host the Games. 

While unlikely to play a major role in your experience of a finite amount of time as a conscious being on this planet, it is generally good news that surfers will be calling the shots here instead of a group of corporate ski reptiles based in Aspen.

As you were.

“As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote,” said the infamous Captain Ahab. “I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts”.

Though they hold a similar philosophy, John John Florence is a lot easier to understand than Herman Melville’s peg-legged protagonist.

If we’re to continue the metaphor, John’s white whale takes the form of the innumerable visions he collects along his sailing quest.

“Just thinking about the way the three of us were raised, the experiences we’ve had and all the places we’ve gotten to go, it’s something I want my son to be able to experience, and maybe he can learn something from it too,” John says in the video above.

Episode five of the Vela series finds the brothers, Lauryn, and Darwin set up somewhere in Fijian waters. The ideology of the trip is reflected in the video’s surfing-to-family-time ratio. It tilts toward the latter as they take in sublime tropical locales.

There are humorous and revealing reflections on the Florence’s original spark for exploration, sibling tantrums, and the bond children have that transcends languages. All very sweet, wholesome and grounded. But damn, I wouldn’t mind the brothers sharing a few more clips of that right during golden hour.

The modern celebrity is no longer a distant deity. They now share more than some of your friends do.

The contemporary star lets us trail in their wake, offering the illusion that if we witness their morning coffee, we’ve earned a seat at their table.

Even if we had, Jack Robinson probably wouldn’t serve us one. While prepping scrambled eggs using a viral technique, Robbo confesses he’s never had a full coffee, McDonald’s, Hungry Jack’s (Australian for Burger King), or KFC.

He’s so diligent in avoiding nutritionally bankrupt food that he once made a bet with Glenn “Micro” Hall to cut it out entirely. A decade ago, they shook on $5,000. With interest rates where they are, the stakes have apparently been raised to $10,000. Micro, care to confirm?

This episode sees Jack, wife Julia, and little Zen Robbo travel from their Gold Coast home to Victoria. Instead of being greeted by a Toyota Yaris like an average citizen, they make their way to Torquay in a Raptor that could easily swallow two lanes in most European towns.

Day-to-day life around the Bells event involves private masseuses, cupping sessions, eyebrow plucking, unsolicited numbers shared on beer coasters, hangouts with other “professional surfers” (as the on-screen text reminds us, in case you’ve forgotten what Kanoa Igarashi does for a living), and plenty of good surfing — a strong record of Jack’s finessing technique on right points. 

Indulge in this backstage pass to a life you may never inhabit.

In 2005, Kelly Slater won his seventh world title, putting an end to the three-year reign of Andy Irons.

That same year, mounted to the front of surf mags everywhere, Quiksilver released Young Guns. Its premise was to introduce Quik’s up-and-coming team riders to the world at large.

The film was shot entirely in the Mentawais, long before footage from those islands had been exhausted. They lived in the collective consciousness of surfers everywhere. Each magazine story and surf film still induced severe bouts of daydreaming among the young, and a sense of dread in those who were no longer young.

But a lucky few groms didn’t have much to dread. Masatoshi Ohno, Luke Munro, Jeremy Flores, Ry Craike, and Dane Reynolds were pampered by their sponsor and godfathered by a thirty-four-year-old KS on a boat drifting along the finest reef passes of the archipelago.

The outcome, and its sequels, remain in the digital ether, confirming the trilogy’s success and place in surfing culture. Yet, a nagging question remains unanswered: Who chose to place Dane Reynolds in the first section of the film?

In 2025, Kelly’s curriculum vitae remains unmatched by anyone who has ever inhabited this planet. After taking a hit from the nostalgia bong, Quik decided to nod to the original, though this new version has no kings.

The cast reads like a who’s who of the CT: Griff, Kanoa, Alan Jr., Rio Waida, and Marco Mignot are joined by two of the hottest freesurf tickets of the moment, Mikey Wright and the youngest of guns, Hughey Vaughan. The reboot is set to premiere in August.

The art direction, which ties two decades together, remains in the hands of Natas Kaupas. It was he, twenty-one years ago, who created the “Impaired” logo that illustrates the accompanying collection.

This time, the team set camp on a small, private island in the Ments, and each day found a new corner of the ocean to apply their skills.

No preview yet, but the whispers are good. Until then, here’s how the premiere dates are shaping up.

May 2nd — Gold Coast, Australia
May 8th — TBD, New York
May 9th — Atlantic City, New Jersey
May 10th — Asbury Park, New Jersey
May 15th — Stab High Virginia Beach
July 2nd — Capbreton, France
July 11th — Ericeira, Portugal
July 30th or 31st — Newquay, England
August 1st — Huntington Beach, California
TBD: San Diego, California
TBD: Shelter Biarritz, France
TBD: Zarautz, Basque Country
TBD: Hartbeach, Netherlands

As always, place your bets over at Betonline.AG — and click here to read our Premium event preview.

The roasting of Mikey C masquerading as a contest preview/gambling advice… what’s not to like?

Here’s Stace Galbraith and Josiah Amico overlaid over West Australia freesurfs, making sense of the Main Break forecast, the (very strange) men’s current top 5 and the sudden disappearance of Stab’s Editor-In-Chief after finishing Bells with gambling debt to pay (it was about time he took an L). 

Thanks to a tip-off, the WSL is reportedly thinking of running the contest as early as tomorrow, and trying to wrap the thing in just two days. Think: overlapping heats from sunrise to sunset, women and men alternating rounds and a commentary marathon for those in the booth/on the glass.

Other topics covered here include: SITD star Ethan Ewing’s tough start at Bells, Miggy Pupo in yellow, the Aussie Treble leaderboard, why Hawaiians connect with WA, Jordy Smith’s boomerang transit path from Bells→J Bay→WA, underdogs and overdogs, wildcards, Griffin’s post-breakup spite run, the return of Jason Stevenson to the contest site and much, much more. 

As always, place your bets over at Betonline.AG

Nathan Florence doesn’t say the h-word directly, but based on the assortment of lean and mean Pyzels assembled above, it’s safe to infer. His quiver of Pyzels reflects his wave-riding philosophy: Paddle hard and go late. Long roll-ins and drawn out bottom turns are out, last-second drops into the wave’s most critical point are in.

“On a smaller board with less volume, when you take off later, you have to take a heavier drop, (but) you actually end up entering the barrel sooner and you can maximize your barrel time,” Nathan said. 

Since embarking on his shallow water circuit, most of Nathan’s most memorable rides have come on the Puerto Padi, a more refined, tube-hungry version of the Padillac that he reviews with Pyzel above in his North Shore garage. In terms of sizing, this is Nathan’s most versatile model, and he’ll ride it from 7’ to 9’8”. Those abusive Puerto Escondido sessions and hair-raising Irish barrels were all courtesy of this thing.

A key detail: all thrusters, not a quad in sight. Quick pivots and last-second grip are prioritized over down-the-line projection. “With the waves I’m surfing, I want reliability and trustability,” Nathan said. “The thruster gives me that.”

Given Nathan’s minimalist philosophy, it tracks that he isn’t fond of the larger liters found in the 9-foot plus range.

“Honestly, I don’t like riding these types of boards,” he said. “They’re so big. They work, and you can get the wave of your life on it on a big Jaws wave. Jaws is really hard to get the perfect wave, and they work well for that. But you want to be on a smaller board once you’re in. I think there’s progression to be made to sneak volume in somewhere and get a larger wave with a smaller board.”

For peaks that don’t require as much heavy artillery, Next Steps are Nathan’s next choice. Nathan prefers his from 6’ to 6’8”, and they’re his go-to for Pipeline whether it’s head-high or maxing. Click here for his Pipe quiver ideology.

After watching his quiver breakdown, one thing is clear: Nathan leans toward the Mick Fanning side of the surf-trip. Every detail is scrutinized through the lens of surfing. Function over fashion, you might say. That means bringing extra gear and donning reef boots and thicker wetsuits even when it’s not totally necessary. It’s all for the sake of longer, better sessions. Nathan also muses on bringing smaller board bags, heat stroke mitigation, fin options, and why he took Ivan’s Radius Prime. 

The board Ryan Lovelace shaped for Shaun Manners on his Electric Acid Surfboard Test was pulled from a scan of a Magic Foot that Ari Browne had been riding for years.

That particular version was built from Varial foam (not the usual EPS) and featured in the series’ opening episode.

“I don’t think it’s for everybody,” Lovelace told Stab at the time. “It’s relearning how to surf — a new positioning on the board, a new rhythm on the wave, a new line you’re going to take.” The Santa Barbara shaper added that, to ride it properly, you have to “learn a new dance.”

“Just because something is hard to ride doesn’t mean it’s good,” Shaun said, after visibly struggling to find the board’s sweet spot in pumping surf at Winki. “It’s way harder to ride than I thought.”

“I feel a little bit dumber after surfing it.” He eliminated the board at the end of Ep. 1, before heading to New Zealand for the remainder of the test.

It was only fitting, then, that it would end up under Krooky’s arm, and onto a spirit quest through the Indonesian archipelago. 

In hindsight, Shaun’s experience is a strong indicator of how difficult the board is to ride, but most of all, how well it goes under Krooky’s ropey frame. Still dripping on the shores of Torquay, Shaun added: “I reckon I could’ve ridden a soft top out there and had more success.”

Funny he should say that. Krooky goes on to do exactly that, in exemplary form, on what is perhaps the most dumbed-down surfboard design in history.

Conducting his own independent EAST, the S.U.R.F. MVP still finds time to ride a twin and a twinzer through some of the least and most filmed waves across Nusantara.

This one comes with the Fun Boys treatment, just in case anyone’s forgotten how fun surfing is supposed to be.