Flame-haired King of Pipe leaves swell of the year to go tanker surfing in New York with the vlogger Surfer magazine hates!

Of all the Jamie O vlogs, this captures, I think, the essence of the weekly video: a mostly pointless snapshot of famous surfers squeezing often unripe oranges for whatever juice they can get.

Here, we see a cross-pollination of surf vlog stars Jamie O’Brien and Ben Gravy as Jamie and filmer cross the Pacific Ocean to meet Gravy in New Jersey and, later, to travel together to New York.

Gravy, you know as the vlogger Surfer magazine ghosted at their annual awards last month when they refused to include him among the nominations for best web series, which was eventually won by Rip Curl’s The Search.

“(Rejection) formed me into the person I am today. I am a self-made person. I started that way and I’ll probably end that way,” said Ben.

Jamie’s vlog, of course, is a guilty treat like taking out your surfboards and laying them tenderly on the bed or hard kisses that leave little flecks of blood on your lips.

Watch as Jamie goes to New Jersey, gets cold, goes to New York, follows squirrels and, as a finale, rides a one-foot wave next to a tanker.

A highlight of the episode is his response to subscribers’ questions.

Morgan King writes, “Jamie comes off as a self centred tool to be honest.”

Another asks how he handled being dropped-in on at Pipe by a bodyboarder.

Watch! 

It's a special gift, intangible, which bridges the gap between adequacy and greatness…

There are some performers, rare as blue butterflies, who carry around their own lightning. It has nothing to do with the sponsor stickers on their boards or how many contests they’ve won or how many times they’ve surfed Pipeline, although all that helps.

When the camera hits them, sock.

Kelly had it and Andy Irons. Medina and Toledo. And this medium-sized boy with “big bones and long muscles”, who turns twenty-one in three days and who has a head of hair that looks like a bale of hay that’s just exploded, named Jack Robinson.

He grew up in Margaret River, still lives there, and is the sort of surfer who will tear any visitor to shreds in a one-on-one heat.

This short film, if it was played to a cinema audience, would be greeted with rapturous applause. It’s the manifesto of a young man, told with authority.

Watch!