Potentially 33% of the world's best surfers come from the sleepy beach town!
Except we can’t call it the San Clemente Storm can we. Because I bet it is proprietarily owned by Brazil’s president Michel Temer who looks like the sort who has lawyers register trademarks and patents and whatnots.

We’ll work on the name later but in the meantime it totally is a San Clemente Storm on tour and I didn’t even realize because… well, because I forgot Pat Gudauskas was back but with him joining veteran stalwart Kolohe Andino and rookie sensation Griffin Colapinto it is a deluge. A downpour. The San Clemente Squall.
Three, count them one, two, three, professional surfers from a town with featuring only 60,000 odd people. That means 1 in every 20000 is a professional surfer at the highest level. Crazy, no? San Clemente has not had this much heat since President Richard M. Nixon had his Western White House perched there at Church.
Currently, Griffin is 7th in the world, Pat is 9th and the granddaddy of them all, Kolohe Andino, is 22nd.
Which means they could all end the year in the top ten. That would mean 33% of the best surfers in the entire world are from San Clemente.
Wow.
The Los Angeles Times has called it an “invasion” and I wonder if packing the tour so mightily is San Clemente’s not so subtle nose thumb at the WSL for stealing the Trestles event away.
You can take our Lowers but you will never take… our Gudauskases.
Something like that.
Jordy and Kerrzy also reside around there do they not?
Quirky fact, Bourez, being from an entire island of only 2000 people means you have a 1/2000 chance of being a pro surfer on Rurutu, great odds!
Even crazier is Cocoa Beach Florida, where Kelly is from, just 11,000 people! Some quirky math on my part shows that if you can have 1/1000 chance of having a World Title if you divide his 11 up amongst the town folk!
“Surely there is something in the water down there at Trestles…”. Um great whites it seems.
All that radioactivity isn’t hurting, yet!
Nice one Chas,..have to say ,the Avoca trio of Wilco ,Ace,and Wildman Carmichael probably Trump your boys, at least 4 event titles to their name .
What about the Avoca Apache ?
Wilko, Ace, Big Wade. Population about 5000.
All have 7 fingers.
the Avoca side show?
Avalanche!
the Avoca accretion, surely
and they play the banjo ?
They have a sick outlet mall.
don’t want to piss on your parade, but what about if you had just one pro from a town of 2000 or even 10000 people?
or 2 pros
does the wright family count?
When Nic Muscroft was on tour, Jan Juc had a population of around 2200. When Troy Brooks was on tour, Jan Juc had a population of around 2000. When Tony Ray was on tour, Jan Juc had a population of around 1900. Shockingly, these athletes* weren’t even the best athletes* in their own families, let alone the sleepy township from which they were spawned. ’Cept TRay was a fucking cane toad by birth I believe.
*I use the term athlete in place of surfer in respect of the many push ups and burpees commited in the pursuit of mediocrity.
apparently Coolangatta has a population of just over 6000, and if you have ever surfed snapper, it would seem that they all surf
And very well!
Once BG gets the “Fad” Cola Craft Sewery churning out cans, you would be remiss not to approach Colapinto with a signature bottled shoo-in. The Fad Cola Mottled Bottled.
Two things Chas…
Tricky Dick’s Western White House was perched over Cottons.
And the Brazilian Storm would be nowhere without this sleepy town, SC. Half of the Brazilians on tour have transplanted themselves into the 92672.
I knew it started with a “c”…
There you go again with some sort of surfing joke.
The comments for that post were a blast
Chas, can you please reveal the method and reason behind your Instagram ascent.
for a cool $60,000,000 you can now own the western white house. it’s on the market. who doesn’t want to live stones throw away from buried treasure. by treasure i mean nuclear waste.
“Squall” has a nice ring, and matching short term definition to it
“San Clemente Shower?” I like “San Clemente Mist” even though it lacks the alliteration.
The SC Spray? Spurt?
I thought coolangatta was the world championist town anyway.
San Clemente Squirt
The San Clemente secretion, surely
cottons, not church
there’re homeschools popping up all around Lemoore as we speak