Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2017 i Surfing World Magazine

Dakoda Walters has the sort of whiplash sting through the back half of turns that only comes along a few times in every generation of kids. Andy had it. Dane has it. Noa has is it. Moxie. Attitude. Something slightly raw despite his sound surfing foundations. Don’t worry, we’re not labelling him as the next A.I. Reynolds, or Nozzle, kids don’t need that sort of expectation heaped on ’em, it’s just an ingredient that makes them and him a joy to watch. And it’s gonna be cool to see which path he chooses to go down with surfing, especially having enjoyed the luxury of so many great influences. Aside from the beautifully smooth lines of his dad Jeremy, Kodes paddles out daily with a roll call of eclectic talent spanning…

Coffs Harbour, located on the Mid North Coast of NSW, has the enviable notoriety of being home to the world’s biggest banana. In addition to that it has consistently produced world class surfing talent. From the power-based hacks of Andrew Ferguson, Mark Williams, and Lee Winkler through to the loose genius of Shaun Cansdell, Jayke Sharp, and Otis Carey, it seems the odd variety of waves around the area breed an odd variety of styles and approaches. Taj Watson is a throwback to the low centre of gravity muscle surfing that defined the region’s best in the mid-to-late 90s. His game is 80 percent rail, 20 percent lip destroying uppercuts. Of all the guys on the Grom Bash, it was Taj who revelled in the juicy beachies most when the…

The business model behind David Attenborough’s documentary empire is a surprisingly simple one. It’s not that people will tune in to watch an eighty-year-old man lying in the tussocks with his arm down the burrow of a seabird. Even if he can give a crisp commentary on mating rituals as he does it, that’s not the hook. No, the hook is that the young of any species are cute. Adorable tiger cubs. Bumbling baby pandas. Cheeky meerkat pups. We’re genetically programmed to go “aww.” So why is it that when we behold the young of the surfer, we are more inclined to go “Errgh!”? In part, this is because they are the evidence of our own decline. They’re rubbery, inexhaustible and unaware of their own mortality. Their best barrel, laugh,…

Aswell has hit. Solid. Josh is up at the car and into his wetsuit before anyone. He’s travelled the farthest to be here, all the way from Yallingup in southwest WA. So far the two foot onshore dribble we’ve served him has barely lifted the needle on his froth meter above …meh. Might have something to do with the fact he was missing biology, maths, and economics exams at school. Or maybe it was because his mates were sending him footage of the overhead barrels they were scoring back at home. Either way, he’s got the best teen mo we’ve seen in a long time and it’s nice to see the corners of it pointing upwards. Josh is mostly a quiet kid, happy to let the other groms chatter away…

The Surfing World wildcard took all of five minutes to become everyone’s best friend on the Grom Bash. His easy going confidence is cheeky without being arrogant, and there’s an endearing goofiness to him as well. Samson’s basically a quintessential 17-year-old, which may go some way to explaining why he was cast as the lead in Simon Baker’s mega budget film adaptation of the award winning Tim Wintonsurfnovel, Breath.Withnoacting experience under his belt, Samson was chosen from thousands of hopefuls, flown from his hometown of Freshwater in Sydney to WA for the two month shoot, and then towed on single fins into some of the region’s best big wave slabs as his own stunt man, all as part of the life changing gig. “It was pretty wild and I had…

If it wasn’t for a ship full of rum running aground on Stradbroke Island in 1896, Ethan Ewing might today be just another Gold Coast kid, coming off the production line of Gold Coast kids, with a prefab pro surfing career, an entourage, a couple of bad tatts and a lowered HSV. High profile and horribly self-assured, he’d be a kid you know far too much about, and you’d recognise his face as he paddled past you up the point, time after time, day after day. Let me explain. Before dawn on a Monday morning in 1896, helpless in a strong and short sea, the Glaswegian barque Cambus Wallace ran aground on the sands of Stradbroke Island. The student of geography might note here that it was neither North Stradbroke…

It’s hard to believe that Caleb Tancred, a kind faced, blonde haired, blue eyed, toothy grinned kid from the NSW Cenny Coast, who is genuinely one of the nicest young human beings you’ll ever have the pleasure to meet, is also the most ruthlessly-driven, steely minded, freakishly talented, competitive animal to come out of Australia since Mick Eugene Fanning. It’s a conflict that’s even harder to resolve when you’re sharing a line up with him. “How perfect was that peak? That turn was sick! Man, pelicans are so cool!” Every word that comes out of his mouth has to fight its way through a permasmile of wonder. He might be the first kid in the universe who loves wettie rash and blue bottles, that’s how stoked he is. Refreshingly, he’s…

As far as I’m concerned Donald Trump is…  Taj: A chin wobbling white guy trying to run the world. Dakoda: President of the United States… gulp! Josh: Pretty fucken weird (laughs). Samson: Like that guy on the 10’6” rhino chaser that gets a wave, paddles back out and gets the next for two hours straight. Caleb: Nothing to do with me. If Mylie Cyrus asked me out on a date I would…  Taj: Say yes and take her money. Dakoda: Be ringing all my mates and bragging about it and then I’d ask her for an insta shoutout! Josh: Say yes, who wouldn’t? Samson: Tell her to bring Ariana Grande. Caleb: Ask for a shoutout on her instagram. If I could only eat one thing for the rest of my…

BE PATIENT Teaching your kids to surf is all about confidence in the water. Pushing them into Third Reef bombs at Pipeline first surf? Trust me, it will end in tears. Remember it only takes one bad experience to dramatically slow down their progress and that could cost you six months out of the water before they try again. Dad to dud in 0.1 seconds. TAKE A FRIEND Kids will always feed off the energy of other kids and so if you hit the waves with your grom and his or her BFF, not only will it be more fun, they’ll probably end up trying to one-up each other as well. Best case scenario you might just have a little Parko/Fanning friendship unfolding, and at worst an intense Kelly/Andy rivalry.…