Surfer

It was a warm September afternoon in Hossegor, France, back in 2012, and I was sitting on the sprawling deck of a vacation rental surrounded by Craig Anderson, Nate Tyler, Dion Agius, and Dane Reynolds—basically the freesurfing equivalent of The Beat

“Young girls have options to follow this hero or that hero since there are so many women who rip now.” Surfing is a way to be free. When I was a teenager, surfing was life or death. It kind of separated me from reality, and I didn’t want to face some

When surfing makes its debut in the 2020 Olympic Games, there will be a great deal of flag waving, much basking in national pride, and the low simmer of friendly patriotic rivalries. Australian surf fans will paint their faces green and gold. Brazili

Merrick and Campbell, feeling out the Bonzer. Last December, during a drizzly afternoon on the North Shore of Oahu, I was playing cards on the porch at Conner and Parker Coffin’s home fronting Off The Wall when I realized the surf had switched on wit

Five people who are forging unique paths in surfing and shaking things up in the process Cyrus Sutton, the only child of two college professors, spent many of his formative years exploring the American West with his dad—a “fringe critter,” according

Five people who are forging unique paths in surfing and shaking things up in the process Just before the 2016 SURFER Awards on Oahu’s North Shore, during the pre-show red carpet webcast, host Kaipo Guerrero did his best to interview Mason Ho. But bef

Five people who are forging unique paths in surfing and shaking things up in the process In mid-November, the day after Billy Kemper won the WSL’s Peahi Challenge, Kai Lenny posted a striking video clip on Instagram from a wind-torn day at the Maui b

Five people who are forging unique paths in surfing and shaking things up in the process When the forecast calls for steep, barreling conditions, most people opt for high-performance boards they know will work: something in the 6'0" range, heavily ro

Five people who are forging unique paths in surfing and shaking things up in the process Looking back on the early days of surfing’s Internet Age, Warren Smith—a brooding surfer, artist, writer, and photographer from the Gulf Coast of Florida—emerged

It was about 9 p.m., two hours after Dane Reynolds’ flight had landed at Lisbon Airport, when the immigration officials he’d been speaking with gave him the bad news: He was going to be detained for an indeterminate amount of time. Reynolds had manag

For his 25th surf film, titled Proximity, Taylor Steele took four surfers who defined style, performance, and bravado for the past few decades and paired them with four surfers who carry those same torches today. Each pairing was based on a common th

DR:When I was 18 or so, I was struggling with sponsors and cameras and judges and whatever. I remember hearing this line: “Dance like no one’s watching.” And I thought, “Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll surf exactly the same no matter who’s wa

SD:After getting skunked the first day here, my morale went from a 10 to a 1 in about a 10-minute period. I had the highest hopes ever for this trip, and then next thing I know, I was like, “It’s all a bust. This trip’s going to be a complete wash.”

Rob Machado and Craig Anderson, mind-surfing some lefthand runners. RM:There’s something about the snow that’s very soothing. Maybe it’s the color. We’re pulling up at these beaches just covered in fresh snow, and it’s totally empty. Not a person in

John Florence, eyeballs glued firmly on the future. JF:This whole place is so pristine. There’s nothing here. It’s so refreshing. When you get in the ocean, there are no phones or anything like that. You get away from people and the nonsense of Insta

FADE IN:EXT. PARKING LOT ABOVE DURANBAH ON AUSTRALIA’S GOLD COAST - DAY MIKEY WRIGHT pulls up in a rusted pickup truck, gets out, and heads around to the bed. He reaches past his standard thruster for a garage-sale single-fin he recently acquired, bu