“It’s literally firing but since Surfline didn’t say we can’t go out there!”

Nathan Florence, the Prince Harry lookalike brother of surf Olympian John John Florence and who is rightly lauded as the “world’s smartest surfer”, has revealed his mind-blowingly simple hack for surfing The Box empty.

The Box, of course, is a “slab” wave just north of Margaret River Main Break, a vastly inferior wave to The Box but where a tour event is held every year.

In the latest instalment of his excellent YouTube series, Florence explains the key to surfing The Box without the flotilla of media in the channel and its accompanying flotsam in the lineup.

“This funny thing happens,” says the extremely intelligent and capable Florence, “…if no one is out at The Box no one will paddle out. As soon as people paddle out the whole CT jumps on it. This morning we waited… everyone goes to the other surf spots, The Box is empty none is out, it’s pumping, spitting barrels…now that we waited everyone is committed to the other spots.”

Here, Florence, who is twenty-nine, takes the viewer into his confidence.

“Tactical. It’s literally firing. If they would just look at it they would see spitting barrels but since it’s not forecasted…”

And, here, the viper’s tongue, oozing with sarcasm, drops to a whisper for added effect,

“Surfline didn’t say (so) we can’t go out there!”

Essential-ish.

The famous daddy-body is heavy yet when he surfs he becomes like a cowboy of the Westerns: ready to fire his guns at the drop of a hat…

Dane Reynolds, the thirty-seven-year-old father of three and former world number four surfer from Bakersfield in California, has released his latest riposte to what he succinctly describes as the WSL’s “pandering bullshit.”

The two-and-a-half-minute short Offshores finds Reynolds, whose quasi-rural Carpinteria idyll was shattered seven months ago when Travis and Kourtney Barker-Kardashian splurged $16.5 million buying Conan O’Brien’s redundant beach house, trading waves with another local surfer Matt McCabe.

The famous daddy-body is heavy, massive like the country that gave him birth, short arms, dainty hands, yet when he surfs he becomes like a cowboy of the Westerns: ready to fire his guns at the drop of a hat, getting into a rage at the least provocation.

Brief, but essential.

“Needless to say things got a little crazy LOL!”

For a very long time, the two-time world champion John John Florence was the sun around which the famous surfing family orbited, the world barely aware of his remarkable brothers although somewhat cognisant of his mama Alex.

Over the course of the last year, middle brother Nathan, who bares a striking resemblance to Prince Harry (red hair) as well as a passing likeness to Jan Brady (piebald skin), has ridden, and filmed, several “waves of the year” as well as two “best barrels ever”.

In the latest instalment of his not-to-be-missed YouTube series, described as “like a gilded bomb invited to rest among the lilies of the field” and filmed on May 17 at Puerto Escondido aka the Mexican Pipeline, Nathan continues his life as a fiercely living desperado.

For the first time ever seen in surf, his POV footage splits the screen with the land angle, Nathan prowling the lineup like a tiger. Your heart will pound at the closeout sets he must negotiate and the lefthander without a floor.

Nathan, who is twenty eight, may be mad but he is serious about it. And he may be without a soul. But he is not without a heart.

Essential.