Conner Coffin, Burleigh Heads, Australia

Conner Coffin, pictured here, flew into Australia a while back to compete in the Billabong World Pro Junior Championships, at Sydney’s Narrabeen. While he was in the country, he travelled up to the Gold Coast to enter the Hurley Pro Junior. In the contest highlights clip we posted yesterday, Conner was the stand-out. Kid’s got a serious future. Stab recently hosted an Indo boat trip with a team of groms, and Conner was invited along to take up post as the oldest in the team (at a ripe old 17).

First wave on the first day of the trip, Conner pulled through the back of an unmake-able tunnel, slapping his head against the barrel-wall and perforating his eardrum. That wasn’t to stop him though; Two days later, Conner was surfing again with a chunk of Sex Wax plugging his ear. First surf back from the injured ear, the boat pulled up to a wave that no-one except the Indo guide thought was surfable. Conner paddled straight into the lineup on his own – first wave he swooped low and jammed a huge top-turn. Photog James ‘Jimmicane’ Wilson said, “You’ve got to be kidding me. The kid with the busted eardrum is first out there?”

The day the photo you see above was shot, the swell had picked up and was breaking wide at Burleigh. Contest heats became paddle-battles, but on the waves Conner did manage to snag, he wasted no time in burying his rails and flaring the fins.