"Maybe now is not my time. Maybe there are more lessons for me to learn. I have to evaluate my life and the decisions I make every day."

It’s been a hell of a season for the San Clemente surfer Griffin Colapinto, two wins from the ten-event circuit, and yet still not enough to secure a position in the crucial top five and thereby missing the chance to win a world title at Lowers, Griff’s home break. 

What killed Griff was his four seventeenth finishes, wiping out early at Pipe, Sunset, Bells and Rio. Shock results given his ability to tear hell out of anything from one to fifteen feet. Further proof, I suppose, of the vagaries of professional surfing. 

You’ll remember after his El Sal win over Filipe Toledo, Brazilian surf fans went nuts, threatening protests, even death, claiming the fix was in for the gringo, a white conspiracy and so on, the hashtag, #worldshameleague a viral hit.

Even Filipe Toledo’s daddy got into the mix, “We really hope that something will be done, and that this will change, as it is becoming unbearable to see and hear the things we are hearing. during the events, I am embarrassed for the others.”

Anyway, following his ninth at Teahupoo and failure to make Finals Day, the twenty four year old has taken to Instagram, telling his quarter of a million fans of the emotional toll of not getting the opportunity to snatch a title at home, how he wept but how maybe it’s part of a higher plan etc. 

“Ahh man.. I haven’t cried from a loss since I was 12 years young and yesterday I did,” he writes. “I don’t know what was going on but it seemed there were 3 or 4 moments that were just centimeters away from things going my way and making it into the final 5. It’s hard to try and understand. I put my heart in soul into it and it just didn’t seem to be enough.

“It was so weird the way everything unfolded, almost so much that there was a greater power telling me something. Maybe now is not my time. Maybe there are more lessons for me to learn. I have to evaluate my life and the decisions I make every day and the person I strive to be and the person I am. This last 2 weeks here in Tahiti have been a great experience learning how to handle the pressure of so much consequence. I absolutely enjoyed every up and down about it.

“Thank you to the people that have reached out and my friends and family that make life so much fun. It really means a lot. Although the year had to end this way I’m proud to check off my goal of winning 2 events this year. I’m going to use this loss and think about it everyday to blow oxygen on the fire within. 2023 it’s fuckin On!”

 

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“We’re pairing a hero board with each of the clothing collections, and for the first season, we’ve got a board with a thermo-chromatic paint that runs from black to transparent."

Many years ago, I wrote a story called The Most Beautiful Shaper in the World.

I commented, “He is still the most fantastic looking man I have ever seen and what sleepless nights he caused me!”

Back then, there was no delicacy to his exceptionally virile merchandise. He was as blood ripe as they come.

The women, including my girlfriend, maybe my girlfriend most of all, had to be treated for spells of dizziness. Worse, his surfboards were addictive and try as I did, I couldn’t be indifferent to his skills

These days, however, the crown of Most Beautiful Shaper in the World, held for thirty years in Coolangatta, Queensland, now resides on Sydney’s northern beaches. 

Hayden Cox, who is forty, and married to the marketing whiz Danielle Cox, née Foote, has rolled his biz HaydenShapes into one of the most popular surfboard brands in the world.

His Hypto-Krypto model, a spruced-up seventies style design that was more fun that the vigorous operation of your sex glands, is still one of the best selling surfboards of all time. 

Now, and following collaborations with Audi and IWC, Cox has partnered up with online men’s retailer Mr Porter for his eponymous surfboard brand’s debut clothing collection, which is called Acetone, and not to be confused with the magazine by Andrew Kidman and Sam Rhodes, which was designed to offset the WSL’s “utter bastardisation” of their beloved sport.

“I’ve always had an interest in fashion from afar, and I’ve been somewhat intrigued about it as an extension of the brand,” Cox told GQ of the thirty-five piece unisex collection. “I could see it being a part of the whole Haydenshapes story that sits in my head.”

Hats cost around one hundred pounds, trunks around two hundred pounds, while the Template Coach Logo-Appliequéd Crinkled-Shell Jackets hits three hundred. 

Examine collection here.