On The Cover: Kolohe Andino, Red Bull Decades

On the cover of Stab issue 68: Kolohe Andino, tremulous slob, Glenn Pang-shaped T and C 5’9” twin fin, Tahiti.

Words by Derek Rielly | Photo by Rob Snow 

[Above is the trailer for a new webisode series, Red Bull Decades, which you’ll see over the coming weeks right here on Stab…]

Martin Potter was four years younger than 19-year-old Kolohe Andino when he electrified the world on his twin-fins 30 years ago. What a breath of furnace and fever! His competitors visibly quivered as this violent tree-trunk of a boy-man twisted and cracked. Ford Archbold’s dad, Matt, saw it. “He made everybody else look like they were still that year. Made ‘em look fricken stupid.”

Thirty years later, it’s Kolohe riding a replica of the famous board in a conceptual surf trip called The Red Bull Decades Project. Iconic surfers (Kolohe, Julian Wilson, Jamie O, Ian Walsh) riding iconic boards in history: a Greg Noll from the ‘60s, a Lopez from the ‘70s, the Pottz twin from the ‘80s, Kelly’s CI chip from the ‘90s, plus five boards that represent today and the future, from Matt Biolos, Dan Thompson, Thomas Meyerhoffer and Maurice Cole.

But it was the Pottz twin that steals the show on page one. Now let’s turn our attention to Kolohe and ask how this lil rocket-ship compares to his usual Mayhems.

Stab: The ‘80s twin ain’t the easiest vessel to control and harness. Describe your experience with it.
Kolohe: It felt amazing. It’s ferocious and it charges like a bull. Very fast with a real nice release on the turns. Good on the backhand airs. Out of all the boards on the trip that was the easiest and most fun one for me. I actually would ride it to have fun around town.

Ain’t it just the most ironic thing that you’ve appeared in Stab in spreads before on a board with an exact same spray. How important, and aware, are you of the lineage of surfboard and surfing? My Dad (Dino) told me a story about one of the times Pottz came to San Clemente. Pottz had given my Dad a board with this exact spray but it was blue and yellow. My Dad, loving Pottz’ surfing and surfboard so much, decided to get the shaper McElroy to shape his boards very similar to that Pottz board. And all this eventually led my Dad to great success on the PSAA tour.

Y’think you could win a heat on the Spider twin? Ha! I can barely win a heat on my boards.

Stab issue 68 is now available in digital form, right over here.