Kelly has been notoriously selective regarding event attendance during his latter years on tour — due to nagging injuries, event forecasts, or perhaps a bit of both. The fact that he’ll show up here speaks volumes about how he feels about this place and those who inhabit it. Photo: Fred Egli

The World’s New Greatest Freesurfer Surfaces In France For The Quiksilver Festival Presented By Swatch

And so here is your Day 1 recap!

news // Sep 23, 2024

Words by Brendan Buckley

Reading Time: 4 minutes

The lot at Les Estagnots is a microcosm of the Euro surf scene.

It’s got about 300 parking places and, in a mere five minutes on an average day in September, you can see it all.

A pack of female German learners, probably fueled by a lukewarm batch of vegan power pancakes at the week-long yoga/surf hostel a five-minute walk away. A QS warrior whose surfing will impress you more than you’d care to admit. A visiting Australian who has purchased and almost certainly not insured an old van. And an understated, hyper-talented talented local surfer just getting on with their day.

Today I observed a new breed of human.

I was not quick enough to capture the light produced by this man’s situation with my telephone, but this is ChatGPT 4o’s best effort at recreating it. I don’t know why the policeman is there, or why his head has punctured the windshield, or why the babe is pushing his head through the windshield, or why the fin placement pushes the concepts behind asymmetric surfboards to a logical but IMO just extreme (you ever seen an asymmetric boat?), but this still feels kinda accurate.

It was a Swiss gent driving a white Porsche 718 Cayman with a sharpie-inspired motif on the hood. Babe in the passenger seat, soft top affixed to the roof. A lot to process. Then I noticed he was drinking a beer, which soothed me a little, but I couldn’t help but wonder what Charles Darwin would have made of this specimen and what his existence is trying to tell us about ourselves and our environment.

I tried my best to brush it off, then walked 200 meters south on the beach and saw Bobby Martinez tee off on a wind-torn chest-high wave.

It was a fascinating day in my beloved southwest France.

Today was the start of the surf competition side of the 2024 Quiksilver Festival, prestend by Swatch. However, the festival officially commenced on Saturday with a freesurf session and a big, excellent concert that turned into a big, excellent night for many.

To be frank, the Atlantic Ocean’s offering today will not become a topic of folklore amongst les Landais for decades to come. But why should I describe the waves when we can have the world’s now greatest freesurfer, Kelly Slater, do it instead?

“It looks like Florida,” he said into a microphone embedded into a phallic loaf of bread for a forthcoming episode of Baguette TV. “But we’re going to get it started in these waves and end up getting tubed.”

Fair enough.

Statistically, you’d think at least one of them would take up a hobby of creating driftwood art but apparently not. Photo: Seb Picaud

The waves may have been average, but the surfing today was still a delight — and it drew quite a turnout for a Monday that rained all morning. Jeremy Flores and comp director Miky Picon called a ‘Best Turn’ round on as the tide quickly filled in over Hossegor’s best bank at 4:30 PM. Meanwhile, a thousand or so people gathered on the beach as the tide quickly filled out on cases of beer. There were dogs. Children. Hot people. Happy people. Stoned people with dreadlocks and happy people with professions we can’t comprehend. At no point did I have the impression that this may have been a tennis tournament.

Quiksilver’s proprietary artificial intelligence machine learning supercomputer spit out teams that will lead to some interesting narratives as this thing develops. Have a look, complete with scores from Round 1.

It’s a French thing to put surnames in all-caps but, to be fair, you should still read Bobby’s surname in all-caps.

Your current leaders and Stab Highway Euro stars Sam and Kylian will be hard to beat. Straight up, this duo puts in 10x more hours at these beachies than any team in the draw that doesn’t include the surnames Duru and Lacomare. They’ll put up scores whether it’s 2-foot and onshore or 12-foot and clean.

However, the best singular waves of the day came from Noah Beschen, Milla Brown, and Clay Marzo, in that order.

As you may have guessed, Noah understood the brief and did the best turn (a layback). Clay did a Clayback. And Milla stomped a solid air rev, which counts as a turn in 2024. Lest we forget that this stretch of sand helped inspire the ‘onshore is the new offshore’ sentiment that jump-started a new era of airs in Kai Neville’s 2009 film Modern Collective.

It seems that receiving the most recognizable award in all of sports/the world does things for your confidence. 2024 Olympic Gold Medalist Kauli Vaast looked very in form today, and has a new air of confidence about him in and out of the water. Despite the general funniness about having to go from the Olympics to the Changas, you might expect more results from him in the future. Photo: Fred Egli

Tomorrow will be a similar size with better winds. Miky reckons there’s about a 99% chance we’re on at 8:30 AM local time.

Right now, Thursday (probably) and Friday (almost certainly) look like lay days. Then, if (really when) Kelly’s prophecy and the current surf forecast hold true, everyone will be standing in head-high-plus tubes by the weekend.

Look out for a new Baguette TV episode dropping tomorrow, which we’ll share on our IG.