Randy Rarick
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Born in Seattle, Washington, in 1949, Randy Rarick moved with his family to Hawaii when he was five. He started surfing at age 10, under the tutelage of the Waikiki Beach Boys. He was a Hawaiian state junior champ, and made the semifinals of the 1970 World Championships in Australia. In 1976, at age 26, Randy and 1968 world champion Fred Hemmings founded International Professional Surfing, aka the IPS, which linked together what at the time were fragmented pro events around the world. They established a ratings system and a world tour, which ended with the crowning of a world champion....
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Ross Clarke-Jones
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Hailing from the central coast of New South Wales, Australia, Ross Clarke-Jones joined the ASP world tour in 1986, at age 19. He was good in the small waves that the tour typically competed in at that time. But when the surf jacked up to 20-plus feet in the 1986 Billabong Pro at Waimea Bay, Clarke-Jones heaved himself over leadges and exited the water as one of the world’s great big waves surfers—and has held that position ever since. He’s been a major force in nearly every Eddie, winning that coveted event in 2001. He’s paddled Jaws, towed Mavericks, Nazare, and Shipstern Bluff, and...
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Bob Hurley
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Surfwear tycoon Bob Hurley spent his early days around Huntington Beach, California, shaping for labels like Hot Stuff, Infinity, Wave Tools, and Lightning Bolt. After spearheading Billabong USA from 1983 to 1998, Hurley transitioned to the creation of his namesake brand, centered around an ethos of innovation that he observed in the youthful counterculture of Southern California at the time. While he stepped down as Hurley’s CEO in 2015, he remains deeply involved in surfing, still sculpting foam, as well as working with John John Florence on the latter’s own namesake company. In...
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Pauline Menczer
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Born in 1970, raised in Bondi Beach, Australia, Pauline Menczer found her way to the surfboard at age 14. Actually, it was half a surfboard—a snapped hand-me-down from her brother. Four years later she won the 1988 World Amateur Champs, hopped on the ASP world tour, and finished the year ranked fifth overall. Her surfing was loose, springy, full of hurled tail. She won lots of events, and, in 1993, the world title. Menzcer has appeared in many surf videos, including 1998’s Blue Crush (the surf video, not the feature film), 2001’s Peaches: The Core of Women’s Surfing, and 2004’s...
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Chris Burkard
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Born in 1986, Chris Burkard grew up on California’s Central Coast and knew from a young age that he had to get out. Photography became the avenue. Primarily self-taught, Burkard won the Follow the Light Foundation grant in 2006, and away he went, working as a senior staff photographer for Surfline, Water magazine, and Surfer magazine, as well as freelancing for The New Yorker, National Geographic, and ESPN.com. In 2009, he was contracted by Patagonia to be a projects photographer. Burkard’s photo books include The California Surf Project, Come Hell or High Water: The Plight of the...
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Jeff Hakman
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Born in California in 1948, Jeff Hakman’s father introduced him to surfing at age eight. Four years later, the family moved to Oahu, and the year after that, at the age of 13, Hakman surfed Waimea Bay for the first time. In 1965, he was invited to the inaugural Duke Kahanamoku Invitational, held at Sunset Beach. Hakman was 17. He won. In the ensuing years, on his Dick Brewer-shaped boards, Hakman transitioned seamlessly from longboards to shortboards—and went on a winning streak. He won the Duke again in ’70 and ’71; won the first Pipe Masters in ’71; won the Hang Ten Pro and Gunston...
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Holly Wawn
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Born and raised on the northern beaches of Sydney, Holly Wawn’s father started pushing her into waves at their local Bungan Beach when she was three. She started competing in her teens, won local events, and won the 2012 Australian Junior Titles at age 15. From 2015 to 2019, she competed full-time on the ’QS, bagged a few thirds, but came to realize that she was happiest surfing outside of the contest forum. Now 27, based in Coorabell, near Byron Bay, Wawn is a freesurfer known for her big, swooping hacks. In this episode of Soundings, Wawn sits down with Jamie Brisick to talk about lineup...
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Derek Hynd
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
From Newport, New South Wales, Australia, Derek Hynd is known for his unconventional approach to surfing and all else. Hynd was a pro surfer in the late 1970s and early ’80s, making his name both for his surfing in a jersey and for the pieces he wrote for the surf mags of the era. In 1980, while competing in South Africa, he suffered a brutal injury that resulted in the loss of vision in his right eye. He retired after the 1982 season and became a coach, first for Billabong, then for Ripcurl. In 1992, Hynd came up with The Search, Rip Curl’s iconic film series starring Tom Curren. Around...
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Cheyne Horan
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Born in 1960 in Sydney, Australia, Cheyne Horan joined the pro tour in 1977 at age 16, and finished second in the world four times, in 1978, ’79, ’81, and ’82. He surfed with an urgency and potency, weaving in and around the pocket on his needle nose, fat-tailed Lazor Zap single-fins. His boards had vibrant, elaborate airsprays. His wetsuits were bright and loud. His hair was peroxide blond. He became a macrobiotic vegetarian, a yogi, a devotee of astrology, and the I Ching. He was outwardly pro-weed and pro-psychedelics. Horan retired from the pro tour in 1993. Soon after, he began to...
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Kelia Moniz
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Born and raised on Oahu, Kelia Moniz is a two-time world longboarding champion, freesurfer, wife, mother, and entrepreneur. From a deeply rooted surfing family, Moniz rode her first waves around the time she learned to walk. She started competing at age 15, racked up a string of victories, and turned pro shortly thereafter. She is the 2012 and 2013 world longboarding champion. She spent much of the 2010s as a traveling freesurfer. In 2015, on a trip in Tahiti, she rode serious Teahupo’o on a longboard. Now 31 and a mother of two, Moniz and her husband, photographer Joe Termini, recently...
info_outlineBorn in Seattle, Washington, in 1949, Randy Rarick moved with his family to Hawaii when he was five. He started surfing at age 10, under the tutelage of the Waikiki Beach Boys. He was a Hawaiian state junior champ, and made the semifinals of the 1970 World Championships in Australia.
In 1976, at age 26, Randy and 1968 world champion Fred Hemmings founded International Professional Surfing, aka the IPS, which linked together what at the time were fragmented pro events around the world. They established a ratings system and a world tour, which ended with the crowning of a world champion. In 1983, Randy spearheaded the Triple Crown of Surfing, which linked together the three North Shore events, and also crowned a champion. Randy would helm the Triple Crown for the next 30 years.
Randy is also a surfboard shaper. He was taught how to shape by Dick Brewer and George Downing, and went on to make boards for Surf Line Hawaii, Dewey Weber, and Lightning Bolt.
While Randy might be one of the most widely traveled surfers of all time, having ridden waves in over 70 countries, he’s called the North Shore home since 1969, and has lived in the same house at Sunset Beach for more than 50 years. He surfs out front, i.e., his backyard, regularly.
In this episode of Soundings, Rarick sits down with Jamie Brisick to talk about about the birth of the IPS and the Triple Crown, learning to shape from the masters, rating systems and standardization, surf purism, the importance of Hawaii, and spending a year traveling up the west coast of Africa.
Produced by Jonathan Shifflett.
Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin).