White Horses

Way back in the day, more than 35 years ago, my mate Brian Stapenel showed me some fuzzy snapshots of beach break heaven. The photos left an indelible impression on me, so that when I first visited King Island in 1991, it felt strangely like a homeco

In 1980 I went to Hawaii to surf in the big events at Sunset, where the World Cup was held that year. I was 15 years old and Australian Women’s Champion at the time, and was invited by Randy Rarrick and Fred Hemmings. It was terrifying! The sets were

I had been watching the cams from my home office all morning without seeing much that interested me, but I rang a buddy of mine, Butch, just to be sure. Butch was busy packing up his gear so I carried on working. When I spoke to Butch a couple of hou

I began painting seascapes after moving to Tasmania three years ago. At the time I was working on the construction of the Three Capes Walking Track on the Tasman Peninsula and was seduced by the sometimes tranquil, often wild views of the Tasman Sea.

Show us a surfer – or a spearo, or a diver for that matter – who doesn’t pee in their wetsuit, and Horsies’ll show you a liar. Yet despite that familiar warm feeling we’ve all come to love, it’s a commonly held belief that the golden shower flowing d

For all the attention we give waves, we don’t spend much time thinking about where their names come from. Perhaps this is because many of us don't actually get to name them. After all, naming rights go to the pioneer, and in a world that gets smaller

Joson and Kea loaded their spearguns into the back of the box-like Karimun and we headed down the hill to the beach, as we often did after school. It may seem odd to allow 12-year-olds to handle potentially lethal weapons, but the parents in our neig

When I was young, I was always pulling things apart, putting them back together. Mum and Dad didn’t have a lot of money, and what money they had, Dad used to spend on the boat he was building. So I grew up around tools and if I needed something, if I

“Like a golf ball, right?” “Yes, exactly. Dimpled like a golf ball, it’s meant to reduce drag.” Pete pauses, scrolling excitedly on his phone before leaning over to show me a YouTube video of a rubber-clad man awkwardly carrying a dimpled, Mini-Simmo

No one knows the actual number of people who have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Africa to Europe. The figure is sure to be in excess of 20 000, making this the deadliest border crossing in the world. The larger disasters are rep

Ever since I first saw photos of Apocalypse, I wanted to surf it. The perfect tube spinning off the point, the thick jungle headland – it all screamed ultimate surf fantasy! Back then it was all hush-hush, but the wave is hardly a secret nowadays. It

This is a super small wave board made for the Japanese market. It’s got an Epoxy X Core with an entry concave coming into the V at the tail. The ski tail design goes back to Rodney Ball, who adapted elements of snow-ski design into his boards in the

I made this board with a 12-inch planer in an old tin shed at Eastwood around 1964 or 1965. I shaped it and did everything – the glassing, sanding, finishing – there was only me. I get people calling me all the time nowadays about boards like this, a

This is a replica of the board I did for Shaun Tomson in the early ’70s, his Pipeline gun. Shaun was always so stoked. He used to surf Bay of Plenty all day long. The day he ordered this he walked into the shop still wet from surfing and said to me,

This board was first designed in collaboration with Dave Rastovich back in 2006. The deck is made out of Paulownia wood, which is light, durable and has a very balanced flex. It has a quad-fin setup and featured in Taylor Steele’s film Castles In The

{captions by the photog rapher} I got a last minute invitation to join Derek Hynd, Kelly and Eddie Vedder on King Island. Turned out to be a great little trip. SEQUENCE: We were surprised by solid NE swell straight out of the Bass Strait. It was a li

Up pulls this Nissan ute and an angry man jumps out and goes straight for Dad, poking a finger right up in his face. He’s shouting, “Put your money where your mouth is!” It’s Sunday afternoon, all we were doing was watering the new plants outside the

Surfboards. Never been interested in them, they bore me, a bit like cars and spark plugs. But I love to watch people on them, especially Hawaiian Barry Kanaiaupuni and another 20 or so surfers from various eras. Most of my early boards died from arth

Grant has been a buddy of mine since high school. He qualified first as a builder, then as a schoolteacher in Mount Maunganui, a major New Zealand surf town, where he tutored carpentry and design. Some of his classes were made up of boys from poor, w

All I have to go on is a hand-drawn map and a dodgy alias. Greg couldn’t pronounce the name of the surf spot he’d stumbled upon, so he drew a cross on the map where he thought I might find it and labelled it “Venom Bay”. “It sounds like Venom Bay,” G

In early 1974, I came back from the North Shore having spent the season staying with Jeff Hakman, the undisputed king of Sunset Beach. Jeff rode an 8’0” Dick Brewer-shaped gun, which I carefully photographed. I wanted a similar board for the next win

{with captions by the photographers} Mason Ho, Desert Point The rip was crazy this session, so I was pretty lucky to connect with Mason on this wave. I love how calm he looks and how he always brings his happy vibe to any lineup, which definitely hel

2018 kicked off with an absolute stinker of a Saturday on the south coast of Australia. It was so hot that once you walked out of the ocean, your hair was bone dry before you’d even got to the car park. Tourists were morphing into lobsters within min

I've been volunteering as a boatman on Tavarua for the last five years. Looking back, I really lucked into my position. A good friend of mine convinced me to join him on a trip right after I finished my apprenticeship as a carpenter, and I immediatel

I grew up playing the blues and rock music with my dad, who armed me with all the basic skills to grab a guitar and go. I idolised bands like The Living End, Good Charlotte, Blink 182 and Kisschasy, and would learn the songs that I’d listen to while

I ended up in the Telos thanks to my boyfriend, Jared Neal. He’s a builder from Oz and when we got together he had just started building a resort out here. It was a long project, about two and a half years, and during that time I would spend months a