Ryan Callinan Inks Equity Deal With Rivvia Projects + Quik Freesurfer Starts Fin Company
Julian Wilson talks banding with the Steel City screwfoot + other industry news.
Well it appears that Ry Cal’s “sponsor me” tape worked*.
“It’s a huge milestone for the business,” Rivvia Projects founder Julian Wilson told Stab, welcoming Steel City screwfoot Ryan Callinan to the brand. “He’s going to be the first sponsored surfer to be repping Rivvia at the world tour level which is super exciting, plus there’s some equity in his deal which means he’ll be a part owner.”
“Since moving to Newcastle seven years ago, Ryan and I regularly get to surf and spend time together. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would get someone of that calibre to help shape and grow the brand. I still feel like there’s so much meat on the bone for Ryan and his best years are ahead of him,” said Jules, who also dropped a hint that 2025 will be the year he fires up his competitive comeback.
“I’m in talks with the WSL at the moment, just seeing what they can do for me, but I’m 100% that I’ll be competing this year. They’ve promised a couple of things and they want to help me get back in the jersey and throw me some opportunities. So hopefully I can get a foot in the door and make the most of it.”
Only 11 weeks ago Callinan found himself ripping Bong stickers off his quiver of JS’, after they failed to renew his contract. Amid tectonic industry shifts, owing to the ABG x Liberated Brands licensing imbroglio, his 19-year partnership with the brand was one of many babies tossed out with the bathwater.
“It was hard to take it personally because that brand had changed so much over that time,” Ryan said. “Bong went from having huge offices to four or five brands all sitting next to each other. Everything they did for me over the years is insane. I’m super grateful. But it was a very different company from when I got there to when I left.”
During the CT offseason, Callinan teamed up with 2x award-winning surf filmmaker Wade Carroll on his film, Ripples in the Void, between hunting down a new apparel deal. Inking a small deal with The Beaches Merewhether — his local watering hole — is a fairly poignant reminder just how grovelly surf sponsorship has become, even for seasoned pros on the competitive circuit.
As one astute commenter remarked, “You’re [Ryan] the perfect surfer for a core brand to back — a surfer’s surfer — it’s a sad indictment of the state of the ‘industry’ that people of your talent are scrapping for $.”
Indeed. Ryan and I joked about the dissonance between swelling lineups, billion dollar industry forecasts, all-time-high participation and the fact that everyone bar the 0.00001% of surfers are fucking skint in this economy.
…But hopefully not him with a bit of luck!
Rolo Montes and Robbie Merrell launch Lazer Fins
Puerto Rican heartthrob and Quikky freesurfer Rolo Montes has launched a fin company with the East Coast, USA’s Robbie Merrell.
Raging against the duopoly of Futures and FCS, Lazer Fins is a core-as-they-come hardware brand testing product on some of the world’s best freesurfers including the likes of: Mikey Wright, Matt Hoy, Dylan Graves, Lee Wilson, Lungi Slabb, Brad Flora and Holly Wawn.
“Well, we tried to make fins five years ago in Puerto Rico in my backyard shaping bay,” laughs Rolo Montes. “We had no idea what we were doing, trying to make them with molds and stuff. They came out not very good, so we gave up. Then two years ago, we got into it again, researched how to make fins properly, and Robbie came over to Puerto Rico for a few weeks. We made 30 sets of fins, and they went really good. So, we decided to start this little fin company.”
“We handmade the first 30, grabbed the ones that felt the best surfing, and brought them to Bali,” Rolo explains. “We found this little factory where they make really good fins, and they’ve been copying them ever since. We started with five or six templates, stuck with the best three, and now we make samples in Puerto Rico and send the final designs to Bali.”
Running Lazer Fins has been a hands-on learning experience. “It’s just me and Robbie figuring it out. Everything we sell has been through Instagram, but we’re opening a Shopify soon,” Rolo says.
The fins are simple and functional. “They’re handmade, straight fiberglass, and just plain colors. I don’t know why everyone makes fins with weird colors and designs. I like my boards and fins clean,” Rolo says. “For now, we’re making all Futures, but we plan to start making FCS1s too.”
$120 US per set, con shipping.
*Hopefully the same goes for up-and-coming Tasmanian aerialist Dion Agius.
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