Welcome To Stab Issue #86

Stab clocked frequent flyer points to produce issue 86: South Africa, Bali, Los Angeles, Western Australia. Perhaps not the lightest carbon footprint, sure, and not enough accumulated miles to acquire an elevated rewards status, but our flight paths were all born of pure… necessity. Surfing as a sport, lifestyle, pastime – whatever you wanna call it – has long been a global game. And even in the age of immediacy, we can’t create something we’re proud of by sitting at a desk, scrolling Stab-a-gram. No, this issue we wanted to be overambitious and jet lagged.

So to create the piece up front, we touched down in Johannesburg with Dane Reynolds for our second instalment of Stab In The Dark. We commissioned 13 of the world’s best shapers to deliver their top line, high performance boards (sans any recognisable logos), and had one of the world’s best high performance surfers test-drive them. The results may surprise you. But, the trip’s real revelation was how much Dane Reynolds knows about boards. His insights are absolutely worth your time.

And while we love the champagne end of the spectrum, we can also dig all (read: most) other kinds of surf crafts. Not everyone is a Formula 1 driver, nor wants to drive a race car. Sometimes you just wanna breeze down the line. Surfing these days is an all-inclusive affair! “If you’re not affecting anybody or harming anybody or impacting them in a negative sense, then who cares what you ride?” asks extraordinary Hawaiian waterman (and a Stab fav), Kai Lenny. He met with Julian Wilson and charming Argentinean longboarder, Alessia Marietti, in Bali to produce our Style cover feature. Three different surfers, riding three very different boards – a hydrofoil, a performance thruster and a longboard. The aim? To create a visual representation of surfing’s new mantra: Any time in the water is a good time.

And while surf’s bright new open-mindedness engages, there’s nothing quite like a return to the old fashioned values that first drew you to this game. Namely: Sourcing empty waves with only your pals on the takeoff spot. So, we tagged along to WA with some of Globe’s finest during their latest footage-gathering run. In between sessions, we jammed with Mr Joe G on the current state of surf films. His views solidify just why he is one of the greats of our generation.

And, to end high, we sent a production team to downtown Los Angeles, where we captured imagery of the exceedingly pleasant surfer/model Ivy Miller in a hotel penthouse suite. There’s far more to Ivy than one might assume. Besides being a talented surfer – who’ll happily endure 10-hour bus rides to surf Pasquales – she’s sharp, witty and charming. For a brave photo essay and one of Ivy’s best bad first date stories, dive into the Style portion of this magazine.

Welcome to the many, wonderful faces of surfing.

Get at Stab issue #86 in its digital form, here.