Pipeline is the most (in)famous surf spot on earth. Hands down. No question. And that’s for a couple reasons: 1) it produces some of the most dramatic waves, particularly tubes, possible in nature; 2) it breaks so close to shore, making it like a gladiator pit for spectators; and 3) it’s notoriously dangerous and, in some cases, even deadly. But what folks don’t see at Pipe, and what the surfers fear the most, is the bottom. Related: Ever Wonder What the Deadly Reef at Pipeline Looks Like? Watch This. The wave breaks over an extremely shallow, extremely sharp volcanic reef. Following a wipeou ..read more

As the old saying goes, "foam is your friend." Photo: Firewire Surfboards/Slater Designs “I’m in my 50s now. So, I can’t be trying to shred all the time.” Finally, it seems, Kelly Slater’s age is catching up with him. He’s 52, he just fell off the Championship Tour likely for good, and he’s soon-to-be a dad for the second time. And accordingly, his latest surfboard model is a reflection of this stage in his life. He’s trading in the sports car for a station wagon, per se. Introducing, the BOSS UP from Firewire Surfboards and Slater Designs, aka “the first ever performance mid ..read more

Only four heats ran at Margaret River yesterday. The most important matchup was Miguel Pupo versus Sammy Pupo. Winner keeps their spot on tour, loser gets relegated to the Challenger Series.  While it's not quite Squid Games, watching the heat felt heavy and heartbreaking. The Pupo brothers are tight knit and extremely supportive of one another. Can you imagine how they felt paddling out? Straight off the bat, Sammy swung on the first wave of an early set, belted it four times, and nailed an 8. It was basically over from there. With inconsistent sets, all Miggy could do was sit, wai ..read more

Hawaii, through the lens of photographer Olaf Heine Olaf Heine Anyone can take a pretty picture in Hawaii. Just point your camera at the sea, the palms, the impossibly green mountains, the bright orange lava and click away. But it takes a special eye to take a photo in Hawaii that’s packed with truth. To show equal parts perfection and disarray, the shine and the cracks. You know, the stuff true beauty is made from. Photographer Olaf Heine’s new book titled simply, Hawai’i, does just that. Heine is from northern Germany and splits his time between Berlin and Los Angeles. He shoots lots of Holl ..read more

A novelty wave, for some surfers, is like a mythical creature. They hunt for them, just like those eccentric cryptid enthusiasts on late-night National Geographic shows, searching for bigfoot, aliens, and the chupacabra. But novelty wave surfers actually find ‘em. Few members in this niche realm of surfing are as successful as Ben Gravy. The New Jersey native has dedicated his life and career to the pursuit of strange, untraditional surf spots. And over the years – with great effort and commitment to his craft – Gravy has scored some of the weirdest, most novelty waves on earth. From river wa ..read more

For the second year in a row the WSL is getting unlucky with swell for its event windows.  Pumping waves just before and after the comps have been commonplace, and at Margaret River, it's the same story, different event. In fact, yesterday the WSL was forced to run heats at Southside (just around the corner from Main Break), because they're running out of time in their waiting period.  While the surf wasn't bad, it wasn't great, either. The days highest score (a 9.10) went to Caitlin Simmers for destroying a tricky left. Tyler Wright, Sally Fitzgibbons, and Sawyrer Lindblad also had ..read more

Come late July, and into early August, surfing will return to the Olympic stage. After its debut appearance at Tokyo 2020, the sport got a sequel: Paris 2024. But being that surfing is a relatively recent arrival to the Olympic party, and it’s not a sport easily understood by the average viewer in, say, Nebraska, it will need a little explaining. That’s where Cj Kirwan comes in. Related: Olympics Seek Viral TikTok Creators to Cover Surfing at Paris 2024 Games Back in October of 2023, NBC put out a casting call for a “content creator” to cover the surfing portion of the Paris 2024 Olympics, wh ..read more

A young Kelly Slater, age 19, with surfing's greatest career ahead of him. Photo by Paul Jones/Fairfax Media via Getty Images Kelly Slater, surfing’s proverbial GOAT, has had a long, storied career – spanning decades, different eras of the sport, the good, bad, and everything in between. His time on the Championship Tour has been nothing short of historic. But his career as a surfer – which most likely came to a close just recently when he fell short of the World Surf League’s Mid-Season Cut at the Western Australia Margaret River Pro – has been full of many memorable moments away from ..read more

The Coronado, ready for action. Isle Surfboards Despite the modern explosion of soft top surfboards, just look at any lineup worldwide and you’re bound to see more than a few foam crafts floating around – the squishy, beginner-friendly boards have been around for half a century. Around the same time Kelly Slater was born in Cocoa Beach, Florida, so was the soft top surfboard. Mike Doyle, the late surfer and mad scientist surf craft innovator, helped create the first soft surfboard back in 1974. It was an extension – literally – of the Tom Morey boogieboard. And for decades, they never really t ..read more

The sand on the North Shore is always moving around. A big west swell can lift thousands of tons of sand off the beach at Pipe and deposit it next door in the ocean at Ehukai overnight, and so the Beach Park is a different wave from day to day. Sometimes it's a shorebreak. Other times it's a wedge. And, occasionally, it resembles a roping pointbreak, like it does in the clip above, the latest from Mason Ho.  In it, we see Mason join his Dad, Mike, at a fleeting sandbar, and the duo dominates the session. The highlight is Mason's first wave: He takes off at the 27-second mark, e ..read more