Red Bull No Contest Sails Into Sydney Harbour, Clocks The Heaviest Surf Breaks Within 30km Of The Coathanger

Examining the rich surf community of the oldest + most densely populated city in Oz.

cinema // Sep 19, 2024

Words by Ethan Davis

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Welcome back to No Contest — Stab and Red Bull’s travel show examining the culture, characters and customs of various surf communities around the globe.

In episode one, No Contest host Ashton Goggans is joined by Red Bull athletes Molly Picklum and Jarvis Earle, and a bunch of legendary local surfers, photographers and designers, exploring Sydney’s variegated surf scene — from Cronulla, 26 kms south of the CBD, all the way up to Terrigal on the Central Coast, just beyond its limits.

In coming weeks, we will be heading to Hawaii’s South Shore, Japan and Florida.

“You’re in the city, and you got five or six perfect slabs within 20 minutes of you,” says Sydney lifeguard and slab shaman Max Mcguigan.

Sydney, Australia’s oldest city, has a population exceeding 5.3 million, representing nearly 20% of the country’s total population. This makes finding decent, uncrowded waves a real challenge. To help navigate this, we sought advice from some of the surf community’s most respected figures: Eastern Suburbs photographer Bill Morris, World Junior Champion and waterman Grayson Hinrichs, Maroubra local Max McGuigan, and two-time World Champion Tom Carroll from the Northern Beaches.

“Bondi was a hard town. It was pretty underground,” recalls Bill Morris of the “Scum Valley” days during the 1970s and 1980s — a time when Bondi had a reputation for being rough and gritty, with a proper underbelly and working-class demographic. “But by the 2000’s, all the movie stars and everyone rolled in, and prices boomed. Soon Bondi was the place to be.”

“The fairest thing in nature, a flower, still has its roots in earth and manure.” – D.H. Lawrence. Here’s Bondi pre-Botox and avocado toast.

2019 ISA World Junior Champion Grayson Hinrichs by contrast, grew up in a Bondi swelling with real estate agents and lip filler. Thanks to the Eastern Suburbs’ proximity to the CBD, stunning beaches, and high quality of living, property prices have soared over 700% since the 90’s in many postcodes, making it one of the most sought after and expensive stretches of coastline in the world. “That’s the thing: you’ve got everything you need right on your doorstep,” says Grayson.

Grayson is also the only person in history who can claim to have gotten a standup pit at Lenny Kravitz — the wave that sits under Marks Park, the outermost point of Mckenzies (pictured here). “It’s called Lenny Kravitz because you can have it,” ex CT surfer Rod Kerr once joked.

Outside the water, we speak with Sam Coombes, Founder of The Critical Slide Society (TCSS) and Batlow Cider, on how Sydney has functioned an entrepreneurial and creative hub for some of the most recognisable brands in surf – such as Mambo, Deus, TCSS and Monster Children.

Finally, Jarvis Earle and Max McGuigan wrap up the show speaking to the region’s several heavywater reefs such as Deadmans, Wedding Cake Island and Cape Solander, the latter of which became the site of one of the most spectacular slab contests in existence, Red Bull Cape Fear.

Growing up in Maroubra, there was no shortage of maniac-mentors willing to school Max in whatever discipline he chose. “The history of the place, every young fella is aware of that and wants to have a crack and fly the flag for the community. It’s encouraged down there. Any kind of madness is encouraged down there,” Richie Vaculik told *Stab*. “If you wanna go hard on the piss you’ll find crew who will encourage that, if you wanna go hard on the footy field, getting into knuckles, or if you wanna have a crack in big waves, there will be plenty of crew who will encourage that.”

“Growing up in Maroubra, it was just full of heavyhitters like Mark Mathews, Richie Vas, Koby Abberton, Wayne Cleveland and all them boys,” says Max, who is widely regarded as the region’s biggest goofyfoot warlord in waves of peril. “The boys pretty much pioneered waves that were unridden [on standups] and started making them as well.”