The East Coast’s Most Underrated Surfer Who (Accidentally) Crowned A World Champ

Collectives and grassroots cliques are increasingly doing the work brands used to do.

Let’s face it, some of these are operating under brands themselves (Chapter 11 TV, Former, Octopus, Epokhe, Ritual Vision, etc.), and could easily grow too big and end up repeating the same story they were reacting against.

But let’s, for now, focus on how a lot of their revenue is going back into the making of surf films — arguably the second-best thing to actually going surfing.

Erratic Nerve isn’t a brand (yet?), but it serves as a platform for the documentation and dissemination of one such clique comprised of East Coast U.S. surfers.

About a month ago, they released a clip where Sensei Ben Bourgeois joined the much younger EN crew on a teepee-hunting mission to Nicaragua.

Now, a well-deserved short documentary profiles the underrated, but far from unknown, East Coast figure. Ben Bourgeois, a favourite son of Wilmington alongside one Michael “Air” Jordan, was actually born in New Jersey (and both Michael Ciaramella and Brendan Buckley are still trying to lay claim to the fact).

The 47-year-old was a mainstay of print media during the industry’s heyday, appearing in countless titles and issues, mostly playing the freesurfer part. In competition, he beat the Hobgoods, Taj Burrow, and three-time world champ Andy Irons at ISA events. After a few years on the QS he made it onto the CT. His first year wasn’t stellar: a knee injury didn’t allow his surfing to flourish, despite a solid qualifying campaign.

In 2001, due to the 9/11 attacks, the CT season was reduced to five events. Going into the final contest of the year at Sunset Beach, 10 surfers still had a shot at the title, and it was actually Ben’s victory against Australian Danny Wills in Round 3 that made CJ Hobgood the 2001 World Champion. Unfortunately, Ben was relegated that year, only requalifying for another season on tour in 2008.

Bourgeois had the opening part in Taylor Steele’s Momentum Under the Influence, where he was often mistaken for Kelly Slater (despite Kelly being well past 23 at the time) not just for the clean board with the Quik logo, but for a rather similar style and flow. Uncanny, really. You could see it already in the grom footage in the Erratic Nerve profile. Ben moved almost exactly like Slater at the same age.

Dubbed by some as the East Coast’s Tom Curren — both for his style and his tendency to go on solo, covert missions to places none of us should know about — this episode of Erratic Nerve’s Off Script series takes a closer, human look at Ben the man: where he revisits his career, and how sobriety helped him fall back in love with surfing.

And for the surfing alone, it is a very worthy watch.