Is Chapter 11 Gunning For World Domination? - Stab Mag
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Is Chapter 11 Gunning For World Domination?

The Venturan collective adopt Shane Sykes.

elsewhere // Sep 20, 2024
Words by Jack O'Neill Paterson
Reading Time: < 1 minute

Expansion, collapse, expansion, collapse. The eternal rhythm of surf brands, history, and my bank account. 

Dane Reynolds once declared, “In the name of progress, everything must go,” while clad in a cowboy hat and bolo tie, obviously plotting his next move to fatten Chapter 11 tv‘s coffers. Or, maybe it was just good theatre.   

Regardless, Ventura’s on fire (see: S.U.R.F California) and it’s all thanks to the ever-chuckling media kingpin behind some of the most revered surf blogs to ever grace the internet.

Throughout its short but beautiful existence, Chapter 11 has kept it solidly Ventura-core. But now, they appear to have adopted a foreign stray. 

“They’ve taken me in,” says Shane Sykes of his Ventura custodians. “Eithan Osborne, Mickey Clarke, and I are all really close friends. Every time I’m over there, I stay in Ventura and hang out at the old shop. Back when it was still there, you could go in, print your own stuff, and mess around with colours, and Dane would just be there punching out orders.”

Shane’s new clip, Nimrod, released through Chapter 11 tv and shot entirely in South Africa by Hunter Martinez, is the first of a three-part project he’s working on with the Ventura crew.

“This one was shot around home in Ballito. There’s a whole two-hour stretch of insane right-points nearby. You can get three tubes on one wave,” says Shane of his home turf. “The next edit will be from Indo— around the Lakeys area and Desert Point. And then the third section is strictly Hawaii.” 

Revisit Shane’s Stab High riot at Lakey Peak, here. If that’s any indicator, the upcoming edit from the same patch of water should be a hell of a spectacle.

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