Jack Robinson, perfectly patient, WA

“I’m actually going to wring someone’s neck that we aren’t out there already.” Remember those blazon words fired from the mouth of one Kelly Slater during the Drug Aware Margaret River Pro? Well, it’s cause he was downright sick of seeing Jack Robinson – fresh faced and newly Billabong’d – do this across the channel: draw pin-perfect lines through The Box, six feet and flawless. “It was on one of the comp day, the wind was good, Jack and Kerrsy were trading barrels and I thought, fuck I’m out there,” says Tom Carey. “I drove around, swam the channel solo and started working the wave out. It’s hard to shoot and surf because it’ll bend or pinch and waves come out of nowhere, but Jack was totally in his element. You know, everyone was calling the ASP out for not running the event there earlier, fucking professional backseat drivers, but man it was slow out there… There’s a tight pack in the lineup and Jack knows his place, waits patiently, but always seems to be on the best set waves. It’s remarkable for a grom to surf a wave like that so well.”