Stab In The Dark Starring Mick Fanning, Jordy Smith, And Dane Reynolds Coming 12.02.19

Stab in the Dark 2019, is our fifth blind date with the world’s best surfers and shapers. For this installment, we enlisted the stars of our previous experiments: Dane Reynolds, Mick Fanning, Jordy Smith, and Julian Wilson.

Julian was, unfortunately, unavailable. 

So, like all of our previous taste tests, the Stab in the Dark All-Stars edition was greeted with hiccups. Turns out, navigating the itineraries of one World Title hopeful, a three-time World Champ, and a businessman/father of three is an onerous task.

With our window falling between Dane’s Vans US Open commitments, Jordy’s one track World Title mind, and Mick… well, since Mick’s retired his schedule is a breeze to work around, we had laid out a few options.

After arriving in ZAF sans coffins, Monsieur Reynolds and Mr. Smith pulled two used boards off the rack at a local shop. The result was terrifically pedestrian.

One: Cater to Jordy, fly to South Africa and do the test there. 

Two: Each surfer would get their six boards and hire a filmer. Over a month they would sample the shapes at their local, on a boat trip, wherever they pleased. Then in September, we’d all get together in Lemoore, Waco, or Lowers (depending on swell) and narrow down the winner. 

Three: Directly following the Freshwater Pro, we’d spend a week in Salina Cruz.

It was all one big clusterfuck, which eventually led to us returning to South Africa. When we got there, we had no surfboards and Mick tore his ACL on the first day. A fine start.  

Mick Fanning would leave the trip almost soon as he arrived, but not before he surfed enough waves and shapes to select a clear top three.

Jordy applies fire hydrant pressure to the tail of any board he rides.

The reason we recycled the surfers of projects past for this edition is simple: we wanted to see if there’s a commonality in board feedback. And, being it’s our fifth year doing this, we tried to mix it up. It’s not often you get Jordy, Dane, and Mick in the same room, let alone on a trip together. And, never in history have surfers gone and ridden the same boards in their respective dimensions in the same waves. This gave a canvas for genuine, honest feedback. The playing field was even. The comparison: Apples to Apples.

All the shapers featured in the All-Stars edition are either Stab in the Dark winners or finalists. Here’s how we picked a winner. Each surfer had six boards. Out of the six, they chose their top three. The scoring went like this: First place=three points, second=two points and third=one point. The shaper at the end with the most points total is the best shaper in the world.

Dane thinks surfboards, like skateboards, have reached their pinnacle in performance design.

This year, Stab in the Dark will premiere online at the same time as our world premiere in Hawaii. To combat spoiler outrage, at 9PM (PST) on December 2nd, Stab in the Dark will get a one time run on Stabmag.com. If you miss it, the film will be on iTunes December 3rd. And, like the rest of this series, we will eventually release it on Youtube free of charge, complete with ad interruptions at a later time. 

The list of shapers and how to watch will come to light in the next few days. Until then, tap the triangle and watch the trailer above.