Table of contents for April #60.1 2019 in Surfer

Shock and awe are feelings I’ve experienced in Hawaii many times before—usually due to the power of the waves, their proximity to the reef and how swells there are prone to doubling in size if you take your eyes off the horizon for even half a second. But this was a different kind of surprise. This was simply more nudity than I was expecting to see in a public place on a Wednesday morning. It was an otherwise serene setting in the lineup of an obscure Big Island reef. The rain had just stopped and the sun was coming through the clouds in golden columns of heavenly light. The wind had been offshore all morning and a head-high swell offered tapering rights that folded idyllically into thin-lipped barrels. There was…

If you’ve spent any time there at all, it may be difficult to imagine, but Pipeline wasn’t always the spotlight-illuminated headliner on surfing’s main stage: the North Shore of Oahu. Until the late ‘60s, that distinction belonged to the big, warbly peaks of Sunset Beach, just a short drive northeast up the Kam Highway. That was partly because of tradition, partly because Sunset is itself a phenomenal wave and partly because, back then, few surfers had actually figured out how to surf Pipe and survive. It’s equally hard to imagine the beachfront at Pipe during a roaring swell as a sleepy stretch of rural coastline without the throngs of tourists, long lens cameras and food trucks selling acai bowls by the metric ton. But until the surf industry descended upon…

FROM THE SNOW TO THE SURF Ex-pro snowboarder Colter Deupree breaks down his snowboard-inspired designs If you were to walk into the shaping bay of pro-snowboarder-turned-shaper Colter Deupree and pick up one of his boards, you might, just for a split second, believe you’re holding something made for carving down snow-covered mountains. That’s because Deupree’s shapes simulate the outline of a snowboard: they feature wide noses and tails, narrow centers, and inward sidecuts in the middle, all combined with the goal of creating a surfboard with easy glide and friction-free speed. Here, he breaks down recent updates he’s made to his left-field designs. How have you updated your models from last year? I have added a little bit of concave on the bottom of the boards to create some more…

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“This image was shot at the end of a 10-day run of swell on the West Coast,” says SURFER photographer Todd Glaser. “It was one of the biggest, most raw swells I had seen in a very long time. At high tide, big lines were coming into the bay, but borderline not breaking. As soon as the tide dropped, though, the waves started breaking more and more consistently. This image was taken after shooting in the water for 7 hours. While most of the guys who had surfed all day were drinking a celebratory beer or two, Zach Keenan [pictured] stayed out to get a few into the dark. Baja is such a beautiful place, not too far from our homes in San Diego. With the right weather and swell,…

1991 “He smiles, he laughs, he loves to have a good time, but the backhanded slaps of the street are still there, waiting to pay back the son-of-a-bitch who made him feel so bad.”- Steve Barilotti Through the 1990s, there was indeed no slap on the North Shore feared more than that from Pipe commander Johnny Boy Gomes, the bruising power surfer who, at 5’9" and 200 pounds, was built like a bulldozer with a ferocious temper to match. He struck fear into visiting surfers—regardless of who they were or where they came from—up and down the North Shore. Gomes swaggered menacingly and confidently up and down the beach, was a snarling presence in lineups all over the Seven Mile Miracle, and cultivated a hard-earned reputation for unpredictable violence. Gomes…

“They let their surfing do the talking” has long been considered one of the highest compliments we, as a culture, can bestow upon a surfer. It implies a kind of humble disinterest in the spotlight of surf stardom, as if to say that how we ride waves is all that matters and the rest is just white noise. Over the past year, Koa Rothman’s surfing has done plenty of talking, with mind-blowing performances in kegging reef passes all around the world. But, then again, Rothman has had no problem letting his talking also do the talking. Rothman’s vlog, “This is Livin’”, started from a simple idea: pro surfers live wild lives, striking out across the globe in search of surf, often getting into all kinds of misadventures along the way—why…

You know that cheesy, old adage about home being where the heart is? Well, cheesy or not, every surfer who’s ever hit the road and found a wave perfectly suited to their approach knows that on some level that’s true. Although the surfy version of that saying would go something like this: when you find a wave you connect with, put in the time to truly understand its idiosyncrasies and earn the respect of its locals, then it can feel every bit as familiar and affecting as your homebreak. Not quite as catchy as the original, but no less true. The following pages are a window into how certain waves can so strongly resonate with us, featuring a handful of surfers who’ve spent years getting to know their specific siren-like…