"All of the times people have doubted me, said I wasn’t good enough, I’ve always channeled it and combined that with passion, hard work and love."

After a five-year tenure with Rip Curl, Santa Babs’ Conner Coffin, a boy whose over-easy haircut rivals Strider Wasilewski’s for lesbian chic and with looks so good you want to kiss his eyelashes, has signed with the fishing-cum-surf brand Salty Crew.

The tiny almost-thirty year old, who was a world title contender in 2021, signed with the popular underground brand created in 2014 by world champ CJ Hobgood and pals Jared and Hayden Lane, and who sold half of the biz to Globe three years later.

Salty Crew, or so goes the promotion literature, is made for “the hard workers, the searchers, the risk taking, mistake making, watermen with nothing to prove. For the seafaring, the wax sharing, the grommets, young and old. For the tried and true, who’ve paid their dues, for those who find refuge in the sea.” 

Despite his milquetoast appearance, Coffin has rarely shied away from controversy.

Following his cut from the tour last year, he savaged the World Surf League’s chief strategy officer in a wild interview.

Per Chas,

He describes how his tour fate was decided by “waist high onshore shit Winikipop.” How the waves were garbage, more or less, the first five events, crushing livelihoods. Dealing with the hatred, amongst his professional surfers, about the cut. “It sucked. I hated it honestly. Big price to pay…” he ends with as Prodan giggles uncomfortably, eyes wide, mouth, framed by well-manicured beard lightly agape, then tries to re-spackle the Wall of Positive Noise by calling this year’s G-Land “really good” before casting blame on magazines of yesteryear for poorly representing the early “dream tour” as all fantastic.

After the premium surf website Stab used “racist tropes” to describes Coffin’s chances, or lack, of winning the 2021 world title, he fired back, “Stab, thanks for your continued ‘premium’ journalism, you could spell my name right. It pissed me off for a few minutes, but then I thought about all of the times people have doubted me, said I wasn’t good enough, said I can’t do something that I wanted to do and how I’ve always channeled it and combined that with passion, hard work, and love to accomplish my goals. In posting this, I hope it encourages you guys to use negativity and spin it into a positive and don’t let anyone get you down or keep you from achieving your goals!”

Although the honied era of multi-million dollar contracts is long gone, surf fans can rest easy lest they be worried of his financial future for mammy and daddy Coffin , Rich and Krista, operate a high-end construction biz, delighting in “creating architecturally significant homes”.

The last time we saw ‘em on these pages was six months ago when they listed their one-third share in 101 acres of gorgeous Hollister Ranch dirt, a beachfront enclave that counts blockbuster filmmaker James Cameron, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and minstrel Jackson Browne as owners.

The expected price for the pretty two-bed, two-bath guest house with separate studio at 115 Hollister Ranch Rd, Gaviota was a few shekels south of five mill.

"Did I win?"

Wild scenes at the Da Hui Backdoor Shootout yesterday as lifeguards were stretched to capacity following injuries to big-wave world champ Makua Rothman, four-times Jaws winner, and big-wave world champ, Billy Kemper and Kala Grace, a twenty-four-year-old local who, only four days earlier, had caught one of the best waves of the winter at Pipe.

 

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A post shared by Kala Grace (@kala___grace)

Shortly before two pm, Grace’s helmet was ripped off following a closeout and subsequent sets drove him into the notorious reef where he was knocked unconscious.

In a dramatic rescue, a lifeguard abandoned his jetski to pull the kid out of the water.

CPR was performed on the beach.

“Probably bounced off the reef, he had a big scar right above his eye and right below,” his daddy, the Waikiki Beach Boy Willie Grace said. “He was kind of purple when they brought him in.”

The Hawaiian lifeguard Chris Owens, who nearly exited this mortal coil a few weeks back when he was kneecapped by an adult learner at Waimea Bay, posted an update on Grace’s condition on Instagram.

“Many of you already heard he was a victim of one of the most severe surfing accidents of all time while surfing in the Backdoor Shootout yesterday. I just got off the phone with my life long best friend Fielding Benson who is Kala’s Stepfather and was told from him, Kala has regained consciousness, but he couldn’t speak yet, I think because of the breathing tube in his lungs, but Fielding said he asked for a pen and the first thing he wrote to him and his Mom Maryanne was: Did I win?”

Makua, busted ACL in his knee, Kemper’s condition unknown.

See the rescue below.