Koa climbed out of the abyss!

Hawaiian surfer and face of Alexander Wang’s eponymous fashion label reveals “devastating” brain injury, depressive episodes after wild brush with death, “You can feel the life squeezing out of you, you can go at any moment!”

Derek Rielly

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"I paddle up the face, whip it, get launched and I get knocked out. Everything went… blue. And I could hear the peaceful violin."

The three-time NSSA champ and runner-up to Zeke Lau’s Ultimate Surfer is the subject of a new short film documenting his wild ride after a devastating accident that left him with a traumatic brain injury and depression.

Smith was in Nias, Indonesia, biggest swell ever to hit the joint and, “Third wave, this bomb comes in. I paddle up the face, whip it and go. And it’s a complete fucking closeout. I get launched and I get knocked out. Everything went… blue. And I could hear the peaceful violin.”

Koa Smith, a mature twenty five, was born in Kauai and, as a child, studied the work of Bruce and Andy Irons.

Smith surfs with the contented and dreamy look of the female suckling her young as he dominates some of the best waves in the world including, but not limited to Teahupoo, Skeleton Bay and Pipeline.

But no man is immune from pain when the amygdala, hippocampus, and dorsomedial thalamus conspire to depress.

Watch here!

Slater, mid-flight.

Watch just-released footage of world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater destroying surfboard following poor performance in Portugal event, “I’d rather cry than laugh right now!”

Derek Rielly

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"A horrible performance…"

There is no more satisfying feeling on earth than the efficient and crisp destruction of a surfboard that has wronged you, even better if that board didn’t cost a cent.

Good, clean fun.

In this very good short from the WSL, we find Kelly Slater entering the locker room in Portugal following his shock loss in round three to Aritz Aranburu in round three of the 2014 Moche Rip Curl Pro, a defeat that would doom his run for a twelfth title that year.

Slater’s board enters the locker room first via kick. Slater, face flushed a bright crimson, looks at the board with a frigid stare, takes one skittering step forward, leaps into the air, lands on board, tumbles onto ground.

The board is then propped against a wooden bench where Slater completes the annihilation.

Essential viewing.

Three-year-old Baz Mamiya.

Brave Hawaiian boy who learned to surf wearing a lifejacket and who stunned world by stealing tour lead from greatest of all time Kelly Slater releases feel-good celebratory film, “Only One Will Make It!”

Derek Rielly

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Described as being “extremely intelligent and extremely capable and magnificent when angry."

Barron Mamiya, the little Hawaiian who stunned the world by snatching the tour lead from Kelly Slater following the two North Shore events, has released a celebratory short film.

The twenty-two-year-old bantamweight, who started surfing aged three and with an orange life preserver attached to his back, lit a furnace on tour when he finished ninth at Pipe, Slater requiring a buzzer-beater to squish past, and won the Sunset event in waves varying from six to fifteen feet.

Described as “extremely intelligent and extremely capable and magnificent when angry,” Mamiya’s focus now shifts to the unpredictable beachbreaks of Portugal, event #3 beginning on March 3.

Reynolds watches Pipe, with can.

Go-for-broke former world #4 surfer Dane Reynolds moves like a ballet prima donna amid the North Shore’s wild bumping and grinding!

Derek Rielly

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Dane in Hawaii, with pals, essential… 

It’s no secret that Dane Reynolds, the thirty-six-year-old vlogger from Ventura California and former world number four, goes limp if pushed against pro surfing’s pouting vulva.

Freed from competition and its anxieties, however, and Reynolds creates a pulse-racing magic, spectators rummaging their memories for anything they’d seen before that had come close to his re-writing of old classics.

On the North Shore, Reynolds moves like a prima donna amid the North Shore’s wild bumping and grinding, his presence blanking out the raucous carnival nosies and moil of people.

This edit also includes Holly Wawn, Tosh Tudor and pals.

Essential viewing.

Galloping to the finish line in a previous edit.

Beloved pro surfer who cried for three days following backlash to World Surf League joke continues to silence critics with knuckle-duster-in-your-face short film, “Ecstatic Yo-Yo”!

Derek Rielly

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"The guy’s got a big mouth and never stops whining about the WSL. Let’s see that dude step up!" says former world champ Shaun Tomson.

Six years ago at the 2016 Surfer Poll awards in Hawaii, and during a group acceptance speech by Globe teamriders for best movie, the Australian surfer Noa Deane leaned into the microphone and said, “Fuck the WSL!”

The throwaway line caused much distress and Noa issued an apology shortly

Creed McTaggart and “Baby” Dion Agius, who were on stage when the immortal line was issued, say Noa didn’t leave his room at the Turtle Bay Hotel for three days and that he cried for most of it.

“Noa was getting fucking death threats! He cried for three days!” Creed told the insanely popular podcast Ain’t That Swell.

Recently, the former world champion Shaun Tomson said, “The guy’s got a big mouth and never stops whining about the WSL. Let’s see that dude step up!”

Anyway, what better way for Noa to silence critics than by violently undulating his round dimpled butt in the fading glow of an Australian east coast sunset, humping his LSD signature model and galloping madly for the finish line.

Essential.

Photo: Steve Sherman/@tsherms
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