James McKean taking "step off" in an unconventional direction. Credit: "Stern Fever"

The Story of Shipstern Bluff Is Coming to the USA

“Stern Fever” is a full-length documentary on the mutated staircase.

news // Nov 9, 2026

Words by August Howell

Reading Time: 3 minutes

As usual, Laird Hamilton said it succinctly and without body fat.

“Big waves need no explaining,” he said in How Surfers Get Paid.

While Shipstern Bluff isn’t your traditional “big wave,” Laird’s logic still applies. Watch any session of real sets breaking under that towering Tasmanian cliff, and it’s no surprise why magazines and brands wanted everything to do with the cold, rotund, booby trapped barrel. It’s too aesthetically compelling for its own good.

That very confluence — Shipsterns, surf media and the crew that frequent the notoriously imperfect slab — is the subject of a new film that’s about to embark on a US tour. Directed by Talon Clemow, Stern Fever charts how a spot that was kept undercover through rumor and physical isolation became one of the most recognizable waves on the planet.

“The way that Shipstern became what it is today is because of the media,” Talon said. “Without the magazines and clips that came out, if it were never exposed it would still be this mysto spot.”

The film traces the arch of Shipsterns through the angle of exposure, from the pioneering sessions to the magazine heyday to the introduction of tow surfing. Some footage in the doc goes back to the late 1980s/early ‘90s, where guys were figuring out how to chip in on 7-foot plus lumber. There are interviews with multiple generations of Shippies surfers, from locals like Holmer-Cross brothers to visiting pros who left their mark like Laurie Towner, Mark Matthews and Dave Rastovich.

Talon, who currently lives in Tasmania, went on his first trip to Shipsterns was in 2006, when he was Billabong’s audiovisual manager. The squad rolled deep: Laurie Towner, Brendan Margieson, Dylan Longbottom, Joel Parkinson and Andy Irons.

“Billabong was very Stern-focused at the time,” Talon said. “I’d heard about it before I started there. When the first opportunity to go there came up I put myself on that trip in a heartbeat because I was fascinated by it. I just wanted to experience it as a filmmaker. I never would have believed I’m in this position now, having made a film and being there for so long.”

You may already be familiar with one of Talon’s past works, THUNDERCLOUD, which detailed the unforgettable XXL Cloudbreak session in the middle of the 2012 Volcom Fiji Pro. Stern Fever offers the same marriage of context, storytelling and arresting cinematography. The doc won Best Action Sport Feature at the Newport Beach Film Festival earlier this month.

“Looks good from here.” Credit: “Stern Fever”

Even for one of the current generation’s best slab surfers, the draw to Shipsterns began with a printed spread.

“The whole world heard about Shippies when photos started coming out,” Russell Bierke said in his ode to the slab. “The first wave that was imprinted in my brain was an old photo of (former pro and Shipstern pioneer) Andy Cambell. He’s at the bottom of a giant staircase and it doesn’t look real.”