Dan Karren wins Sony x Stab’s Just Watch Me

If you frequent this website, first of all let us thank you, and second of all let us jog your memory back to a time (like, a week ago) when an orange band, filled with video clips, ran across our homepage. It was for Sony x Stab’s Just Watch Me, a competition inviting entrants to submit their best single, self-shot, point-of-view clips. The winner, judged by votes, would scoop $5k.

As all things do, the competition came to an end. The votes were tallied. And, we have our winner: Mr Dan Karren, owner of that very long barrel at Aussie Pipe on the South Coast. It’s impossible to watch without feeling a tingle and a rush. Reckon he was thrilled to be asked for his bank account details on a friday afternoon?

Stab: So, uh, you’re our Sony x Stab Just Watch Me winner.
Dan Karren: I won it? No way. Oh. My. God. Thank you so much. Are you serious that I won it? Oh my god. Oh my god. This is the best week of my life. I got my first hole-in-one yesterday as well! It’s all happening at once!

Were you sweating over the votes tally toward the end of the contest? My sister and I are pretty close and she helped share it with all her friends at school. I owe a lot of credit to her. We were calling each other every hour, going, oh we just got another so-and-so many votes.

You look like you know your way around Aussie Pipe. I hadn’t been there in three years, and I’d just gotten back from overseas and had been hanging to go down south, just cause I love the waves down there. The charts a week beforehand were showing a little south swell with really good north wind, so I called three of my mates. I’d just bought a camera, too. We figured we’d take it down and take turns filming. Everyone took the day off work, we left at two in the morning, walked the track at five. We took turns filming and I had a camera on my head.

That one of the better waves you’ve scooped there? That was definitely the best wave I’ve ever had out there. It was one of the best barrels I’ve ever had, period. It wasn’t a big barrel, it was just a little grinder. It was a long one.

It looks so steady. Are you pumping through it? I kinda just sat there. One thing you can’t see when you’re looking from inside is just how shallow it was. I did my pumps before it really started and just set my line. I was sitting in it going, closeout, closeout, and then it was like, hang on, I might make this. The last section rushed and I couldn’t believe I came out clean.

Have you fantasised about how you might spend $5K? Not really, I mean, I just bit the bullet this year and started uni, so I can’t really go travelling, which sucks. So I’ll just be saving it for a rainy day. I’ll save it til I finish uni, then… straight on a plane. But I’ll be taking a few mates out for drinks tonight. I owe a lot of people who shared the video and stuff, so there’ll be some beers for the boys tonight. I’ll try and bank at least four fifths of it, hopefully (laughs).