From The Indies Trader To Vela: How Boats Are Debunking Surfing’s “Crowded World” Narrative - Stab Mag
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All 75 feet of the Indies Trader MV, floating above a blue lagoon in its blue-and-orange Quiksilver Crossings paint job. Captained by Martin Daly, the MV is the original vessel of the Indies Trader fleet. During the Crossings project alone, the refurbished salvage boat ran 90,000 nautical miles and logged 103 new waves between 1999 and mid-2005, hosting the likes of Tom Carroll, Tom Curren, Lisa Andersen, Kelly Slater and Sofia Mulanovich; big-wave riders Ross Clarke-Jones, Peter Mel, Titus Kinimaka and Sarah Gerhardt; and first-generation pros Jeff Hakman, Peter Townend and Wayne Lynch. It pushed far beyond the Pacific and Indian tropics, reaching Canada, the Americas, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and even the Great Lakes. In 2004 Quiksilver paired the mission with a 22-seat seaplane to complete the collection, right in the thick of the surf industry’s era of brand one-upmanship. Today the original Trader lives in the Marshall Islands, working mainly as a support vessel for Beran Resort, ferrying surfers to breaks, divers to reefs and running the occasional overnight mission. Capacity remains eight guests and thirteen people total, including crew. Photo Jeff Hornbaker

From The Indies Trader To Vela: How Boats Are Debunking Surfing’s “Crowded World” Narrative

Torren Martyn + the man who named Cloud 9 discuss the laziness of surf tourism + the explorer’s paradox. 

Words by Ethan Davis
Reading Time: 13 minutes

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