Toby Mossop Is The Oma Dark Horse You Have To Meet

Toby Mossop recently turned 20, and since the Gold Coast mega pulse last week, he’s walked right into the centre of the surf world radar.

Whenever a big swell event goes down around the globe there’s always a handful of underground characters who front up and do something special. They splash across our feeds only to flash in the pan and return to their quiet corners once the double taps stop rolling in. 

Then there are guys like Toby who prove themselves with such conviction in heaving tubes that people take serious notice (by ‘people’ we’re referring to the calibre of Joel and Mitch Parkinson, Brenno Dorrington). 

Having given Jack Freestone a nudge at Oma MVP, we thought it best to get young Toby on the line for an intro. Striking while the iron’s still sizzling, he’s just dropped a fresh edit (viewing above) which he put together with help from Tai Jennison. 

Hit play up top to enjoy and read on down the page for extracted dialogue from the lifelong Burleigh local.

On Inspiration, Then And Now

I knew Wes Burg, he trained Parko and Andy back in the day. What Wes did being an ironman then training all those professional surfers, I thought that was epic. I looked up to him a lot.

Nowadays it’s pretty the same, but I look up to Ando, he’s nuts. Also mates that I grew up with in Burleigh, like Liam O’Brien, he’s going so good on the QS at the moment. 

On His Love Of The Tube

Good Burleigh, that’s what I really get frothing on. Everywhere I go is kind of like a right-hand barrel [laughs]. I went to Nias, I was there for that big swell. That was pretty gnarly and scary, but such a cool experience. 

On Oma

It was crazy. I almost missed out on the swell. I went to Noosa ‘cos I thought it was going to be maxing out here, but boosted back Saturday morning and luckily got Saturday arvo and Sunday morning. I got the best days of it, so I’m stoked, but I was kicking myself watching everyone else’s waves. 

On His ‘Good’ One

Billy Watson from Burleigh, he called me up Sunday morning and said, ‘you’re coming on the ski with me’ and he literally stepped me off for two hours. It was the coolest thing ever. That was the only way I could get that wave.

It was one that just went under everyone. There were four skis out the back and they just went straight over it. It was just doubling up so hard. Billy whipped me around on the ski. 

The first section, I was just stoked on that, then it just spat me out and kept going. I couldn’t really see in the second barrel ‘cos it just kept chandelier-ing, then all of a sudden I was out.

Then the third bit just got me. There was this big ripple through the wave and it was all washy, it knocked me off and I just ended up bodysurfing it. I was like ‘fuck! What have I done! I’ve just fallen off on the best wave!’ But it was good that in the footage you could see me make the second bit, I thought it would’ve been hard to see me. I was frothing.

On Getting Talked Up By Gold Coast Royalty

Oh, I was tripping on that write-up. I wasn’t expecting it all. I was like ‘oh shit, they’re gonna be the best compliments I’m gonna get in my life!’ But Jack was easily MVP of that swell.  

On Board destruction 

That Sunday morning I went through three boards in like an hour. That was my fourth board when I got that wave. I went from a 6’6”, to a 6”3, to a 6’1”, to something like a 6’0”. Every board fully snapped. It was so heavy.

On Ski Usage

That whole write up the other day about people blowing up around skis, I was tripping on that. I don’t think people understand how gnarly it was. I tried to paddle for a bit after I got off the ski and it wouldn’t suck you down the point it would pull you out to sea. It was honestly quite scary. 

I fully get the Kirra stuff. You can pretty much paddle Kirra whenever. You can get out at Greenmount or whatever. The lifts back out are sweet, but the step-offs are a bit hectic out there. I think with Currumbin and Burleigh, it’s impossible to paddle. You just can’t get into them.