If we define “technology” as something not occurring naturally but rather created by human innovation, then the “Middle Class” has to be one of humanity’s greatest technologies.

Millions of people living comfortably with health insurance, a family trip a year, two cars, and a trip to Chilli’s every month is not a guarantee on a planet whose humans have largely lived in cycles of Ruler/Peasant relationships for the past 12,000 years.

If you ask most responsible economists, they’ll tell you that the Golden Age of the American Middle Class was somewhere in the early ’80s, after decades of post-war public investment, progressive taxation, strong labor unions, and limited global competition had yielded abundant fruit in terms of a healthy, relatively equitable, and thriving Middle Class in America.

In the surfing world, our belle epoch was the late-90s and early 2000s — when there was finally enough wealth in the industry to create a sort of “middle class” of professional surfers. You knew them: They had a single-story house 10 minutes inland, 30 surfboards in the garage, two kids, and a pre-owned white Toyota Tundra in the driveway with their sponsors’ stickers on the back. They were QS warriors; they were featured in middle-market surf mags, and they starred in B-list surf movies.

These days, there’s much valid hand-wringing about the loss of surfing’s “middle class”. There simply isn’t enough cash to allow anyone but the best surfers to do nothing else besides surf.

Is the Ruler/Peasant relationship back? Are you either on the top of the Championship Tour/YouTube rankings, or destined to be a surf instructor for thousands of San Clementines for life?

Enter Ian Crane. Crane is not “Middle Class” in ability, he’s one of the best freesurfers on Earth —Stab invites him to every conceivable project because he’s (1) incredibly good and (2) incredibly easy to work with. But Crane is Middle-Class in that he’s found a way to surf full-time for a living still at 33 in 2026 without being on the CT or being an on-the-nose “surf influencer”. In short, he’s an anomaly.

Despite Crane’s counter-positioning in the surf world, he does have a YouTube channel —Beach Head (aka Crane Brain) — where he just released the edit you see above. “Double Tap” is really two edits in one — one session at a hyper-fun beachie and another from an uber-scary-but-rippable reef. We called Crane up between nights out at EAST Fest in NYC to ask him about it:

“That big right was sick,” Ian said. “It had a point-break feel. It almost felt like you were going down the line at J-Bay for a brief second. But then it got really shallow and would close out. You’re going so fast down the line that you cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time, so it looks like a long wave but feels like a short one.

“It was really shallow at the end and always finished in a closeout” The first part of the wave was so fun, and you were trying your hardest to rip into as big a turn as you could, but in the back of your mind you knew it was getting shallow and would close out at the very end. You had to kick out or you were just going to eat shit,” Ian said.

The session turned into a very productive filming day for all involved. “There was no one out. It was just me, Eithan, and Kael Walsh, and everyone was surfing well. Eithan was filming for his movie with Chapter 11, and I was filming for my Snapt part, which already has the best few clips from that trip. Kael used his for one of his edits. So all three of us were sending it, trying to get clips for the projects we were working on.”

Now, on the hyper-fun beachie:

“There was a perfect left right in front of the house we stayed at, and I travel with a round-nose fish pretty much everywhere I go,” Ian said. “It’s a must-bring board. It was perfect for the wave out front. In the afternoon we’d be chilling at the house, then hop out for a surf with a mellow crowd. I felt like I could do anything on that wave with that board, and it was so much fun. That’s where we were surfing before the swell hit that gave us the big right, so it was a pretty epic score of a trip for us only having a week there.”

At 33, Ian is not showing signs of leasing a surf instructor van any time soon. In fact, he’s got a specific project in the works. “I’m making an edit, really a film, focused on the whole coast of California. We have great waves here, but I feel like we see the same waves in every clip. The guys in Australia do a way better job of finding unique waves that look so fun and showcasing them well, I want to do that for California. So that’s really my goal this next year, highlighting home.”

Two years ago, Jaleesa Vincent and Luka Raubenheimer released one of the most unique surf films of all time.

Juju The Surf Musical was a 30-minute blend of surfing, music, teeth, hair, yin-yang philosophy, and fantasy in a surreal film featuring Occy, Creed McTaggart, Josie Prendergast, and more. Jaleesa and her band Cupid And The Stupids scored the entire thing, and it arrived to surprised applause from the surf world en masse.

Now, Jaleesa and Luka are beginning premieres for what appears to be an even further elevated film. It’s titled Vampires Surf, it features lead roles from Caity Simmers + Frankie Harrer, and it looks deliciously against the grain.

Anybody creating unusual expressions of creativity with the best surfers in the world gets our attention, and we’re excited to see what Jaleesa and SunBum have cooked up for us.

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Per the SunBum website:

Three immortal vampire girls have spent centuries surfing beneath the moon. When fate changes, they leave the shadows behind and become legends amongst mortals. But the return of the Blood Moon summons them to Coffin Bay, where an ancient prophecy and a powerful evil will decide their future. 

She’s preparing for a Halloween world premiere in Noosa, and you can see the full premiere list below.

Oct 31 – Noosa, The Noosa J 6 PM – Get Tickets Here
Nov 6 – Biarritz, Cinema Le Royal 8 PM – Tickets available soon
Nov 8 – Paris, Le Grand Rex 8:30 PM – Tickets available soon
Nov 11 – NYC – Location to be announced soon
Nov 13 – Encinitas, La Paloma 8 PM – Tickets reserved at pre-party at Sun Bum HQ (444 S Coast Hwy 101 Encinitas, CA) 5:30 PM
Nov 15 – Los Angeles, Braindead Studios 6 PM – Tickets available soon
Nov 20 – Byron Bay, Byron Theater 6 PM – Get Tickets Here
Nov 26 – Sydney, The Hayden Orphenum Picture Palace 6 PM – Tickets available soon
Nov 30 – Melbourne, Thornbury Picture House 6PM – Tickets available soon
Dec 4 – Victoria – Location to be announced soon

Oh… and Sun Bum is dropping a Fiji edit with Mikey Feb and friends next Monday. Stay tuned.

Despite ushering in the Enlightenment, developing the most revered cuisine on Earth, and being in a near-constant state of revolutionary verve, the French don’t have the reputation of being hard workers.

Equitable healthcare, living wages for all workers, arguably the most beautiful metropolitan area in our planetary system.

Despite all of this, Charly Quivront remains eager to flee France and see the world. This year he’s in the midst of his 5th year on the Challenger Series and 11th year on the QS.

Despite the Napoleonic effort and great surfing ability, Charly — in all fairness — has not come especially close to making the CT. Last season, he had four 33rds, two 25ths, and a 13th. This year however? A 49th, a 9th, and a 5th. Now, that might not sound world-leading, but it is… it puts Charly at #8 in the CS rankings and within the Top 10 CT qualification line with two events left in the season (Portugal’s just started, Charly’s in H5 R64).

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But Charly doesn’t just work hard in a jersey. He also works hard fighting against the amorphous, elusive, living blob that is the surfing industrial complex. He has consistently remained relevant by releasing clips via his YouTube channel, “Où est Charly?”, and has retained his Volcom sponsorship for nearly two decades — through all of ABG’s unfortunate culls.

As part of this YouTube series, Charly just released an edit (see above) from his trip to an undisclosed location which you can probably guess, but will nevertheless appreciate seeing.

The video revolves around one misadventure: the airline lost all his boards. The only reason he was able to surf at all was that a family he met on his ferry ride offered to let him use their son’s board. The catch? Their son is like 10 years old, and the board is 5’0″.

Charly made it work though, in spectacular fashion. We phoned him up to ask a few quick questions about the edit while he was in the airport on his way to the next Challenger Series event:

Stab: Why did that family have that board? What’s the surfing community like out there?

Charly: I actually met the family on the ferry on the way there. Pretty much everyone was feeling seasick, and I ended up helping one of the family members who was throwing up overboard. That’s how we got talking. I explained my situation to them, and it turned out they were heading to the area to go kitesurfing. Their son had a surfboard with him, and they told me, “Come meet us at the spot tomorrow. We’ll go have a look. We might not even surf, but you can use our son’s board.”

And that’s exactly how it happened. It was a completely random encounter, but without them, I probably wouldn’t have been able to surf that day. It’s crazy how things can work out when you’re travelling.

As for the surfing community, to be honest, there was nobody else out there apart from that family. Surfing is still relatively underdeveloped in that particular area, although there are other parts of the territory where the surf scene and local community are much more established. But in this remote corner, I didn’t see a single other surfer during my time there. That’s part of what made the experience so unique.

Since it is so remote, how did you even know where to go?

That’s a million-dollar question! I’d had this place on my radar for a long time. Because of competitions and my schedule, I’d never really had the opportunity to make the trip, even before it started getting more attention and more people began heading out there.

I finally managed to find a window between two competitions, and everything fell into place in the best possible way. I already had a rough idea of where the spot was, and luckily, a local friend who was already there called me up and invited me to come surf these waves. The timing couldn’t have been better.

That said, it’s still one of the most remote and logistically challenging places I’ve ever travelled to for a surf trip. Getting there is a real mission, which is also part of what makes the whole experience so special.

I could get used to this JJF YouTube posting cadence…

Remember last week when we shared footage of John and Nate dominating an extremely west swell in Tahiti?

Today, John upped the ante, with footage of the two brothers sharing a collection of conical visions, with bathymetry shallow enough to inspect individual coral polyps on their way through the tube.

Not much narrative machinery in this one. Just shallow tubes and little margin for error; at a windblown reef pass we’ve seen on a few occasions before. (See: Natural Selection and For Whom The Atolls)

If we’re lucky, Erik and Spencer over at Parallel Sea will keep hitting export and upload on these things for the next few weeks.

With its third edition swiftly approaching, it’s clear that the Swatch Nines surf has found its niche. 

Year 1 turned Waco into something resembling a surf carnival. We saw the best boardslides ever done in a sport where boardsliding isn’t really a thing, a superwoman from Tya Zebrowski, and many other delights and absurdities. 

Year 2 rolled back into Waco with the same meticulously absurd approach, this time with a crane to hover various objects for surfers, skaters, and BMXers to play with above the pool. Noah Beschen took rail surfing to the next level, then Hughie Vaughan shut it down. 

This year’s event will go down from October 8 – 10 back in Waco. We don’t know exactly what we’ll see, and that’s the point. However, we do have intel on what to expect. 

First up, the crane will be back with some new toys. At some point, it’ll be used to explore a ‘Pool as a Studio’ concept and will dangle oversized flowers and a massive mirror above the waves while flares and the like go off. This was the brainchild of Coco Ho and Zoe McDougal during Swatch’s annual creative workshop. “My favorite part is when you come up with a simple concept, and everyone adds to it,” said Coco of her experience there.

Another new one? A drop-in rail from the side of the pool, which came from the fascinating brain of Coco’s brother. The idea will be to grind down it, then continue to ride on a wave. This proves to be a theme. This year, the surfers are keen to try rail lines. It should be quite entertaining to watch them attempt to figure it out, unless you’ve spent decades glassing and/or sanding surfboards. 

We’re going to have our biggest skate park yet, and we’ve expanded the invitee list on both the skate and surf side,” says the event’s founder, Nico Zacek, who presents with the energy of someone who jumps out of bed at 4 AM to write an idea down in the Notes app. “Usually, we introduce three or four new things each year. But since we’re doing it Waco again, we still have everything from previous editions on-site, in case anyone feels like trying those again. When we get everything in place, we think it’ll be possible for people to hit three rails on one wave and hopefully do some turns in between.”

That would certainly be a first.

But if that ain’t your thing, like every other year, there’ll simply be a lot of time dedicated to straight-up air sections. All up, the event carves out 40 hours of pool time for 35 surfers. On top of all the new concepts, the Swatch Nines also makes a point of allowing surfers to just surf — providing space for a Hughie-esque moment from last year. 

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All up, here’s who’s coming on the surf side: Zoe McDougall, Coco Ho, Milla Coco Brown, Skai Suitt, Laura Enever, Macy-Jane Callaghan, Zoee Bradshaw, Isla Hardy, Eden Edwards, Juliette Lacome, Honolua Blomfield, Mason Ho, Balaram Stack, Eithan Osborne, Noah Beschen, Matt Meola, Jacob Szekely ‘Zeke’, Blair Conklin, Chippa Wilson, Dylan Graves, Hughie Vaughan, Cam Richards (who is injured, but coming to watch), Mikey Wright, Parker Coffin, Leon Glatzer, Lucas Fink, Lucas ‘Chumbo’ Chianca, Zacky Taylor, Micky Clarke, Shane Boreland, Makana Franzmann, Arthur Vilar + Bruno.

So, how are you gonna see what goes down? Of course, we’ll be there, punting the best stuff on our channels. The Couch Surfing show will be streaming the event live on October 8 and 9. Saturday is the surf event’s first public day. If you’re around, roll into Waco to have some fun. And, as always, a full event recap vid will surface on your feed early next week.

Dylan Graves is our favorite novelty merchant. 

The guy has spent a significant portion of his adult life travelling to surf waves that most people wouldn’t compute as rideable, and he conveys the experiences with terrific candor.

Great Lakes windswell, tidal bores, backwash wedges, and questionable lumps of water requiring diagrams and unique risk assessment.

But before Weird Waves, before YouTube became his primary outlet, and before chasing hydrological curiosities became a viable occupation, there was a kid just trying to get barrelled near home. 

His new film, above, is about that place.

“This wave shaped me,” Dylan writes. “It shaped the surfers who came before me, and now it’s shaping a new generation of Puerto Rican chargers.”

The film follows one obliging swell that produced three straight days of surf, bringing several generations of Puerto Rican surfers into the same lineup. Mauro Diaz, Otto Flores, Carlo Cabrero, Manny Valentin, Seba Llompart, Christian Rivera and others share the edit with a younger crew including Mia Calderon and Sage Katz, plus visitors Mason Ho and Robbie Rickard.

There’s plenty of surfing in it, obviously, but the waves are only half the point.

When we spoke to Dylan and filmmaker Dave Malcolm about Weird Waves back in 2019, Dylan’s curiosity about the ecosystems around waves was already obvious. Rather than using travel purely as a vehicle for finding better surf, the series was becoming a way of documenting people who had built entire little surfing cultures around unlikely pieces of moving water. This time, Dylan dissects the ecosystem that shaped him. 

This wave has beaten the shit out of him for decades, and the film depicts a compression of the generational timeline. 

The surfers Dylan once admired are still there, while he sits between them and the younger Puerto Rican crew beginning the same sort of sharp and shallow education.

“I got to watch the guys who inspired me and the young crew coming up surf it side by side,” Dylan writes, “and I knew I wanted to do something special with the footage and photos.”

The video also accompanies a piece Dylan wrote for the latest issue of The Surfer’s Journal, extending the same story into print. Which feels appropriate for a surfer who recently described his YouTube work to us as an extension of the old magazine trip.

“Writing an article, but with footage,” was how Dylan put it.

This one happens to be about the place where he learned the language.

Hit play above.

“Do you consider yourself the best shaper in the world,” asked Danny Johnson, while interviewing finalist Greg Webber for our recent EAST with Harry Bryant.

“Yep,” said Greg, without a breath of hesitation. “I know I am, which is not an ego thing.”

“I think probably my best example of it is another shaper who actually taught me early on, Rod Dahlberg,” continued Greg. “Once he showed me his board and I’m looking at it going, ‘Oh, beautiful’ and being complimentary in the normal way, he’s a great mate. And then I stopped and saw a couple of little things, but it’s so tiny. I mean, the guy’s a craftsman, there’s no question. Then he said, ‘Now tell me what you can see that you know I can’t see.’ Or words to that effect. I went, ‘No, no, no.’ And he goes, ‘No, I’m serious.’ He knew that I could see things that he can’t see. What an amazing bit of honesty.”

You can watch the whole Finale, featuring Greg’s board, here.

In it, he goes on to explain that Kelly has said ‘otherworldly’ things about his boards. Which is a nice segue into a COTM contender from black belt Disqusser Celine Dion who wrote ‘Greg Webber is the Kanye West of surfboard shaping’. 15 upvotes at present.

Above, master lensman Dan Scott delivers us an audiovisual portrait of the 11x World Champ riding a Greg Webber shape (among other boards) at the reef around Tavarua Island.

FWIW, the banana-rockered model Harry was riding in EAST isn’t the same one being ridden here in Fiji by Slater. Dan Scott explained Slater was mostly riding an Electra (Webber), “about 5’9” and 17 inches wide, while the rest of the pack were on six-footers plus. I texted him the footage yesterday and he wrote back and said, ‘that board looks terrible.’ Which is a pretty funny indication of the standards he holds himself to. If anyone else put together a few waves like that, they would be stoked.”

There could also be a few clips on Mind Crafts (TOMO) sprinkled in there too.

Also funny is that it was meant to be a content trip for Slater Designs and Outerknown, and Kelly spent most of the time riding a board with no affiliation to his own surfboard brand. Sam McIntosh clearly isn’t the only person who’s had his head kicked in trying to get Slater to do something with limited levers. He won’t even promote his own board brand.

Kelly does as Kelly wishes.

At the end, Kelly offers some simple, clerical insights into what it means to maximize the potential of a wave.

“Well, the problem is, I think a lot of high scoring rides are because the wave is good, and not because the surfing is proper,” he says. “I think you see that a lot. You catch the best wave you almost always win, but most people don’t use a good wave to it’s fullest potential. I think there’s only a few guys that have ever really changed that. Like Taj, Dane, John, Medina, Filipe. Like half a dozen guys who haven’t needed to catch the best waves.”

A typically compelling GOATism.

And, as always, Dan’s music choice is impeccable.

See you on the other side.

The male and female winners of the Banco do Brasil São Sebastião Pro — which concluded yesterday — have something in common:

You’ve probably not heard (much) of them before.

And this isn’t because the comp was obscure or the talent was meh. This was the third-to-last Challenger Series event of the season, and the first in which all CTers who missed the post-season cut competed. As stacked as it gets.

For example, some of the surfers featured were: Mateus Herdy, Ian Gentil, Crosby Colapinto, Oscar Berry, Joel Vaughan, Jackson Bunch, Sally Fitzgibbons, Kiara Goold, Teresa Bonvalot, and Sierra Kerr.

And none of them won.

That honor went to Brazil’s Ryan Kainalo and Australia’s Charli Hately.

What’s more? After this and winning the International 6,000 event in Europe, Ryan Kainalo is #1 in the Challenger Series right now, ahead of all those aforementioned names. And Charli jumped 36 spots up the rankings today, now scratching the CT qualification line.

So, here’s a brief overview of what happened today in Brazil, followed by a follow-up on Paul Evans’s Changas predictions piece from earlier this year:

In our recent interview with Miguel Pupo, Miguel mentioned that besides Arthur Vilar, the future of Brazilian surfing is less replete with excellent surfers than his generation was. No more Brazilian Storm. However, we’re apparently all forgetting about a Brazilian guy named Ryan.

20-year-old Ryan Kainalo took down both Peru’s best Lucca Messinas and CTer Oscar Berry on his way to the Finals. In the Final, he beat Australian Alister Reginato after posting a 7.67 under priority and taking the win in front of a home-country crowd. It’s the biggest win of his career thus far.

Even-lesser-known Charli (not xcx) Hately took down both Eweleiula Wong and CT surfer Anat Lelior on her way to a first-ever CS win. In the final, she scored a 7.83 en route to dismissing other fallen CT surfer Francisca Veselko.

Charli was chaired up the beach by Sierra Kerr — which may be just as much an accomplishment as the win itself.

Charli and Ryan are officially a part of the surfing conversation after these deserved wins.

Now, to Paul’s predictions…

In July, Paul predicted that following names would be making their presence known:

Men: Winter Vincent, Shion Crawford, Levi Slawson, Dimitri Poulus, Bronson Meydi, Connor Slijpen, and to Paul’s eternal credit, the Oracle of Britannia picked… Ryan Kainalo. Despite all these surfers making a cultural impact this year, it’s only Paul’s final pick Ryan who has cracked the Top 10 above the qualification line. But the #1 spot has to earn Paul some points. Still two events left too.

Here’s what Paul had to say about Ryan:

The CS qualifiers from Brazil are something of a mixed bunch. If you’re looking for signs that The Storm is regathering, of strong upper air flow vorticity, well the forecast model is showing some uncertainty. Surfers with CT experience are Deivid Silva, Ian Gouveia, Edgard Groggia and Michael Rodrigues, while the unblooded include Weslley Dantas, Douglas Silva, Rafael Barbosa, Gabriel Klaussner, Vitor Ferreira — and Ryan Kainalo. Many future world champs among these though? Only time will tell.

Women: Paul picked Eden Walla, Ellie Harrison, Sierra Kerr, Kirra Pinkerton, Teresa Bonvalot, and Arena Rodriguez Vargas. He’s currently 4 for 6 in terms of the Top 6 above the qualification line. Like the Men’s side, Paul also picked the current rankings leader, Sierra Kerr.

Here’s what he has to say about Sierra — a surfing we’ve been waiting to see on the CT for some time:

Physics has Schrödinger’s cat, philosophy has Russell’s naive set theory, pro surfing has its own paradox: in order to access the premium locations of the CT, you’ll have to stand out in often suboptimal conds to be allowed to do it. Huh? Looking at Sierra’s tuberiding and you’d think destinations like Pipe, Chopes, Cloudy, Snapper — Cloud 9 if it sticks around — would all suit her, but the journey is via Huntington, Ribeira, Saquarema and Newy. Four QS wins in 24/25, including a statement one at solid Nias, topped off with a World Jr Championship win that season set her up for a run at the 2025 CS that was hampered with health issues relating to Lyme disease. Based on recent form in Palm Desert, she’ll be back this year and (hopefully) healthier. 

The next event on the Challenger Series 2026/2027 season will be in just two days in Ericeira, Portugal — we’ll see if the new names keep knocking down the old.