Clay Marzo, SUPERbrand Surfboard Factory, Australia

“A few”, is Clay Marzo’s humble response when I ask him how many waves he got, immediately following a surf in the lower Clarence. It’s this kinda down-playing of a phenomenal talent that’s helped him fly under the radar compared to most other surfers in a similar age and talent-bracket.

During the surf in which Clay says he only got “a few” waves, he surfed with such frenzied haste and energy, it’s disarming to hear his toned-down attitude. After each wave, Clay would paddle back into the takeoff zone, straight into another wave. It was rare to see the Hawaiian sitting on his board    during the second of two three-hour surfs for the day. Every wave he got, Clay would try something immense. Clay has no regard for many things: No regard for personal well-being (as is evident from his level of commitment to stomping knee and ankle-threatening landings), no regard for impressing others, no regard even, for landing tricks. Or so it seems. Clay’s surfing is fast, loose, carefree, unpredictable and exciting.

After the lower Clarence trip, Clay re-located to the Gold Coast for a few days before flying out. On his way to the airport, Clay cruised by the SUPERbrand surfboard factory (his sponsor) to pick up some boards. Twelve boards, in fact. According to photog Nate Lawrence, who accompanied the lower Clarence SUPER trip and shot this moment of Clay:

“Clay was really happy. He checked out the boards. Started packing them up but then told his girlfriend there were too many boards to fit in. I think he was kinda flustered with all those boards. Then (SUPER guys) Jason, Sparrow and Jai took over the packing and packed them up with all this foam and plastic. Clay stood by watching and rubbing his hands. He told me he was stoked to have a bunch of boards to try back home. He said he hasn’t had this many new boards in a long time. They packed up 2 board bags full of boards and sent him on his way.”

One of the benefits of going on a team trip with shapers, is that the shapers can closely watch every session that their surfers have, and analyse what each board is doing for them. Following the SUPERbrand trip, craftsman Sparrow and the other shapers had an (even) better understanding of what they should be putting into Clay’s boards. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how these 12 new sleds slide for Clay Marzo?