Finn McGill Breaks His Sunset Curse, Dares John Florence To Enter Haleiwa
Meanwhile, 15YO Stab High Japan winner gets “fully drained” to take the women’s.
Reigning Triple Crown winner Finn McGill and 15-year-old Tahitian and Stab High Japan winner Kiara Goold won the Sunset QS 2000 over the weekend.
We don’t typically cover QS events, but in the absence of the Triple Crown and Vans Pipe Masters (VPM), we miss Hawaii. Ironically, it’s the cradle of surfing that, as a region, gets shafted most when it comes to proper commercial irrigation.
Florence is fronting the next Pipe event. Here’s hoping they revive the pirate broadcast from the last webcastless VPM. Finn’s dad resorted to flicking on the Surfline camera to watch his son win the Sunset final from California. Dire straits, alright.
“Amongst the competitors we’re definitely treating it as an unofficial Triple Crown,” says Finn. “But the winner gets a beer crown trophy.” On Saturday night, the drink of choice was Mai Tais at Lei Lei’s. “Shoutout Uncle Ian for hooking the boys up. Make sure you put that in there,” Finn insisted, still dusty.
Much obliged.
Here’s what went down.
“This was rare for a Sunset event. It was psycho every day,” Finn said. “That event’s kind of been cursed since COVID. One good day, then weird midsize at V-Land or the point. This year it was the opposite. Every day was good. You couldn’t really complain about conditions.”
The previous 24 hours had untangled a two-decade-long curse. Finn finally won the Sunset QS after six runner-up finishes, 20 years to the day after surfing his first ever final there as a five-year-old. Strangely enough, the same surfer he clashed with as a five-year-old was also in this final: Barron Mamiya, who got his breakthrough CT win at Sunset as a wildcard, securing his spot on tour full-time in that same year.
“It was everything you want. A final in good waves with your friends, just a heavyweight battle swinging for the fences,” he said. “Whoever came out on top, it would’ve been sick. I’ve been runner-up out there five or six times, so finally winning it… yeah, it broke a curse.”
Finn lathers on the butter for 16-ish-year-old Kingston Panebianco (who, he admits, might technically be 17), who had a “dream run” through the draw. “He had three heats in a row earlier in the event where he got the score with like 10 seconds left.” He carried that storyline almost all the way to the finish.
“He was winning the final for 20 minutes,” Finn said. “It was me, Josh [Moniz] and Barron all trying to chase him down.” Without a webcast, all anyone off the sand saw was scores flipping on LiveHeats. Finn says the lead changed “like six times.”
On the women’s side, 15-year-old Tahitian Kiara Goold emerged as victor after getting “fully drained” on the end bowl. “She hunted that thing down. It was fully no accident. The whole beach erupted.” The women’s final was slower, he admits, but still had windows. “They got their chances,” he said. “Our final was cranking, but that doesn’t always show in the scores. We were all trying to send tens, basically.”
While a broadcast wasn’t in the budget, there was enough to plant Kaipo and a hot mic on Kam Highway. His Stab interview is coming soon, by the way (think: a tell-all of the Madonna files). Finn described the noise diplomatically: “You couldn’t make a drinking game out of taking a sip every time the beach comms said ‘large playing field.’ You’d be dead.”
Finn is painfully aware of the stock Sunset cliché, but he’ll also be the first to tell you it’s actually true.
“In the final I still burned Josh under priority from like a hundred yards away,” he said. “Sunset is just all over.”
That unruliness is precisely what makes taming her satisfying, says Finn. “At a beachbreak it’s like, how perfect can I surf this wave, how can I make it look better than perfect,” he said. “At Sunset, if you do a couple of turns and kick out in the channel you’re like, ‘Holy shit, I made it.’ That’s what I like. You’ll never be the perfect surfer at Sunset.”
Combined with the fact Finn’s neighbour growing up was Pancho Sullivan, the original rail-murderer of the North Shore, the victory was sweeter than stolen honey. “Pancho used to take me out there when I was a little kid,” Finn said, before divulging his the power surfer’s Sunset secrets.
“Pancho’s main note: stay low, and hold the bottom turn longer than feels natural.” Finn then attempted to make an ice hockey analogy, which to an Australian is a bit like speaking hieroglyphics.
“In ice hockey, when you do a sharp turn, you’ve gotta push into the ice. At places like Sunset and Haleiwa you’ve got to do the same, push into the water when you turn so the edge doesn’t pop,” he said. “It’s weird way of framing it, but it works for me.
“At Sunset there’s this big kick you get when you come out of a bottom turn,” Finn explained. “If you stand up too early it just boots you and you’re dead. Pancho always told me to stay low longer than normal. That stuck.”
John Florence then came along and rewrote the rest of the operating manual.
“Everyone used to just do those big swoopy carves and maybe get a barrel,” Finn said. “Then John started actually hitting the lip out there a few years ago, and it kind of changed how people thought about it.”
Speaking of John, Finn has spent the last few winters running mock heats with him and Luke Swanson under the watchful eye of coach Ross Williams. Dress rehearsals that left him, in his words, “eating humble pie.”
“You always want to back yourself, like, ‘I’m gonna take him out every time,’” Finn said. “Then you realize you basically just have to get lucky to beat him. He just doesn’t make mistakes. And he just scours the lineup and makes stuff happen. It was a real ‘holy shit’ moment.”
Still, his losing record against the three-time world champ wasn’t enough to stop him from some friendly fire. “C’mon John, I dare you to enter Haleiwa,” he chuckled.
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