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coffee convo Hwilsin tour talk writing WSL

2 BIRDS 1 STONE

Mikey McDonagh, Jordan Lawler, and Al Cleland each won an event on the Challenger Series. Not one qualified for the Championship Tour next year. Ian Gouveia skipped 2 events and finished 2nd in the CS rankings.  Miguel Pupo, Joel Vaughan, George Pittar, Edgard Groggia, and Jackson Bunch never even made a Final, yet they all […]

HARD DRIVE

What’s the best wave you’ve ever caught in your life?  I heard Taj Burrow give an interview about a recent session out at Cloudbreak where he caught the best wave of his life. He’s 46 years old. He surfed on Tour for who knows how many years, traversed the globe a handful of times surfing […]

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coffee convo Hwilsin tour talk writing WSL

PICK OF THE LITTER

Have we already talked about how fucking gnarly the Challenger Series is? For example, Jordan Lawler didn’t surf at Snapper, but he won the first event he surfed in – the Sydney Pro. He then got 33rd in Ballito, and now has back-to-back 73rd (dead last) place results. He currently sits in 14th place on […]

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coffee convo Hwilsin writing

RULE NUMBER THIRTY

The past month has been cold. So cold that it felt like Summer ended long ago. We’re not even 2 full weeks into Fall yet, but it feels like Winter. A bad one at that. No swell, really cold water, and pretty empty lineups. There have been a few sneaky days here and there with […]

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coffee convo Hwilsin writing

FOR WHAT?

I had a really fun surf the other day. It was my 127th day surfing this year. I started keeping track of my surfs last year. I noticed my time in the water slipping a lot, so I wanted to make sure I hit a certain goal. I set my mark for 100 days of […]

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coffee convo Hwilsin tour talk writing WSL

FAULT

If you’ve followed along with this website for any duration of the 3 and a half years it’s been around, you might have noticed something a little troubling. I know I am at fault, and I’m here to own up to it today. So here it goes – I’d like to apologize to any, and […]

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coffee convo Hwilsin writing

POOL TOYS

“Remember, don’t take it too seriously; we’re making pool toys.” That was the last part of the sanding lesson my boss gave me yesterday, after I sanded through yet another board. It’s a long process – learning how to build boards, and it’s not easy.  But neither is surfing. It was a long process to […]

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coffee convo Hwilsin tour talk writing WSL

GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION

Did Caity Simmers just ruin ‘big’ surfboard manufacturing? One could argue that John has basically done the same thing. What the hell am I even on about, you might ask.  Well, if you’ve kept up with the WSL World Tour over the last two years then you know about the Vissla Shaper Rankings – the […]

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coffee convo Hwilsin tour talk writing WSL

CHAMPIONS

John John Florence and Caity Simmers are your 2024 World Surf League World Title winners. The Champions. The pair went into Finals Day – Friday, Sept. 6th, each sitting atop their respective division; two heat wins away from glory. Caity had to wait until noon for her first wave out at Lower Trestles. John paddled […]

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coffee convo Hwilsin writing

GHOST

There’s a little secret I want to share with you. If you are riding an Al Merrick surfboard right now, or have owned one anytime within the last 10 years, there is a very high likelihood that Al Merrick did not actually shape that board. “That’s because Britt is the shaper now,” you might think. […]