Inspiration
Meet the people who weave life into the fabric of surfing. We profile interesting characters with an amazing story and an obsession with the ocean. Read about up and coming surfers and crusty old locals who smell like billy goats and ride single fins. If they have a story to tell, you’ll find them in here. Come and be inspired by artists, business gurus and thought leaders in our well of inspiration.
Waikato surfers dominate at the 2019 National Scholastic Surfing Championships claiming the team title, winning two of the seven titles on offer and boasting six surfers in the finals. The five-day event wrapped up yesterday in a 1.5m swell at Manu Bay, Raglan. Finals day saw the biggest surf of......
Lying on a table in Seventhwave’s Ferrymead factory in Christchurch is a fluffy orange wetsuit that doesn’t look anything like the wetsuit manufacturer’s flagship Yamamoto suits. Sarah smiles, she lifts the wetsuit up and explains the prototype to me. “I haven’t surfed in this one yet,” she admits with a......
New Zealand company Kathmandu yesterday entered into a binding agreement to acquire 100 percent of the Rip Curl Group Pty Limited for NZ$368 million. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of 2019. The sale should come as no surprise, Rip Curl’s founders, Brian Singer and Douglas......
New Zealand surfers Tane Bowden and Saffi Vette have dominated the final event of the Hydralyte Sports Surf Series, winning the men’s and women’s divisions at Jan Juc, Victoria, today. With a small swell on offer on the final day of competition, the event again shifted from Bells Beach to......
Kaikoura turns it on for the semi-annual Pete and Danny Memorial Contest recently. Glassy conditions and waves in the 3-6-foot range ensure competitors are fizzing at a local righthand point break, but it is the smoky campfires and laughter between two tribes that steals the show. Back in 1995 two......
I knew it was Jay standing there in the parking lot. It wasn’t because he wore the hair of a rocker, or that he stood in dusty jeans with a plain, unbranded mushroom-coloured jersey. It was the fine gradient of foam dust on his fingers that gave him away. Since......
Rusty surfer Jonas Tawharu blazes a trail through Indonesia with filmmaker Oscar Johns capturing the powerful goofyfooter’s every turn, reo and barrel. Twenty-year-old Jonas may call Mount Maunganui home, but it has been the waves around Dunedin, where he is currently studying marketing and communications, that have helped him to......
Billy Stairmand finishes in eighth place at the ISA World Surfing Games presented by Vans completed in Japan yesterday, New Zealand’s best ever result at the event. Stairmand’s performance advanced the New Zealand Team to a seventh overall finish. Staged in Miyazaki, Japan, from September 7-15, the New Zealand team......
Raglan’s Billy Stairmand has maintained his blistering form at the ISA World Surfing Games in Japan today. His run saw him secure the Oceania qualification slot on Friday. Today he blazed through Repechage heats to put himself into the frame for gold when the event resumes tomorrow. Stairmand will surf......
Kiwi pro surfers Paige Hareb and Ricardo Christie discuss what it means for surfing in New Zealand following the announcement of the Piha Pro today. The World Surf League today confirmed the Piha Pro QS10,000 will take place in March 2020, 2021 and 2022. The Piha Pro will be part......