The Pick Up: Here’s How 20 Boards Will Be Stolen In One Night On The North Shore

When the Vans Triple Crown hits the North Shore, so do a helluva lot surfboards.

For instance, Stab‘s Editor in Chief and (apparent) QS hopeful, Ashton Goggans, showed up at my Venice home, pre-flight to Honolulu, with two coffins bursting at the zippers sporting a fresh quiver of Mayhems and Album assyms – eight unwaxed, yet-to-be-tractioned boards in total – ready to surf everything from Chuns to Pipeline, Vland to Sunset, Sunset to Freddie, Rocky Point to try his luck at the very terrifying, yet enticing Tube City…. and some would inevitably sit on the deck unwaxed and unridden.

As Joel Tudor tells us, “The people who show up with 12 boards are kidding themselves. They only ride three of them.”

We mocked him, as we should because he is not a QS warrior but just a man with a diagnosable surfboard problem. The rest of the Stab crew, however, all toted three-to-four boards, which left our house total upwards of 30 boards once the gang was all here.

For this episode of “The Pick Up”, we spoke with Joel Tudor and Jon Pyzel to get a feel for how many boards are brought to the North Shore each year.

The short answer: a fuck ton.

If you’ve ever spent any time in a team house on the strip, you’ll notice boards both broken and intact piling atop one another like crooked dominos. They’re stuffed beneath beds, couches, and taking up any corner with just enough space. And, during this time, robberies are not uncommon. Cars get their windows smashed on Kam Highway, phones, wallets, cameras and anything of value swiped and sold for whatever the black market value. Each year, tales of surfboards disappearing from yards are told in lineups spanning the miracle coast.

“That’s why you’re always hearing that 20 boards got ripped off last night,” confirms Jon Pyzel.

Hit the triangle above and dig this episode of “The Pick Up”, A Stab x Vans joint!