Watch: Jack Robinson in “Hollow Ground”

“Around 11 or 12 I started sinking my teeth into The Box,” says Jack Robo, who at 18, has never known the definition of fear. If you ask any gent who’s apt in thick cannons over shallow reef about the kid with a dazzling bowl cut, they’ll tell you the same; Jack’s a nut. “He’s one of those people who paddles out and pushes the level of the whole crowd,” says John John Florence. “He’s one of the gnarliest guys for sure.” Which is indisputable, the kid started surfing Gnaraloo at 14. The same spot that Jay Davies told Stab, “Is one of the scariest waves in the world, if not the heaviest and most raw piece of reef on the planet.” The kid’s a prodigy; he’s the JJF of West Oz. Jack can carve, leap and is on his way to rivalling Kelly Slater, J-Floz, and Jamie O’Brien as the best backside barrel rider in the world. “Jack Robinson is unbelievable in big left barrels or any barrelling wave,” says Kelly. Remember the Pipe trails last year (3:00)? He won it, at seventeen, during the same string of swell that nearly killed Evan Geiselman. We’ll reiterate the words of Mr Florence, he’s one of the gnarliest, for sure.