Watch: Quiksilver’s King Of The Groms Final

With all due respect to the other five miles, it’s the roughly two-mile stretch of North Shore coastline between V-Land and Log Cabins that is truly miraculous. 

And miracles hardly go unnoticed around there. However, on day one of the Quiksilver King Of The Groms final, you’d have only seen four heads bobbing around that whole zone. 

They belonged to Brody Mulik, Mananalu Chandler, Kash Brown, and Dylan Donegan dos Santos. 

The water was murky thanks to a day’s worth of rain. The swell and wind were both coming from the northeast. It was about 4-6 feet, with the occasional larger set. At one point, I watched Brody endure over ten minutes of duckdiving to make it out the back after taking off on a burger. 

You’d have a hard time getting motivated unless the world’s largest surf brand was offering you $10k and a clout-lined crown. But, somehow, the kids all got clips. 

Though it wasn’t quite what you’d hope to get out of six days on the North Shore in February (general consensus suggests it’s been a weird year over there), things only got better from there. It slowly transformed from big, brown, and messy to small, blue, and clean — which meant the kids had quite a spectrum of conditions to prove themselves worthy of a throne once famously occupied by Gabs Medina. 

This whole thing started late last year, when Quik greenlit the event after a six-year hiatus initially sparked by COVID. It was open to anyone 18 and under, and all kids had to do was post a single clip. This incited over 120 entries. From there, Griffin Colapinto and Kauli Vaast picked a top 8. The top 8 then went through two rounds of head-to-head matchups, which narrowed it down to two. Then, Griff and Kauli tapped two wildcards who bowed out in the voting process — because you can’t trust everything you see on the internet. 

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So then there were four, and it was quite the mix. Mana is a Kauai-born resident of Pipeline, who presents much older than 17. Brody is a West Oz freak (see his SEOTY here), who is very believably 15. Kash Brown is a 17-year-old from Cronulla, who can do a bit of everything (see his SEOTY here). And Dylan Donegan is an 18-year-old 2x ISA World Junior champion from Lanzarote. 

Kauli was too busy qualifying for the CT to hit the final, so Griff joined Hughie Vaughan and Reef McIntosh to watch 23 hours of freesurfing and decide who’s worthy of $10k. 

While Brody stood out early, it ended up feeling like a contest between the kids with the most common and least common last names (ya ever met another Donegan dos Santos?) 

Hit play to see who took it out.