Tom Curran

below two feet and that's when everyone was having to struggle to get the things and it made four to the beach in the contests and when the number of maneuvers counted, it made that surfing look pretty bad.

But once you're up and planing, then you get something like what Peter Daniels, a South African Peter Daniels did for Curran on one of the first boards that I ever saw him ride at Jefferies.

And just from looking at it, I can pretty much tell what the rock was like.

And I chatted to the guy when I was in Spain and he was there as well at PUCAS.

So you can't really get the thing to give you as much range.

But what it does do, it's kind of like in third or fourth gear all the time.

And so that's why Curran was surfing that kind of board at Jefferies.

and basically going the same speed the whole time it might miss a little bit of the top speed that you can generate when the curves are all the way through and the reason being is that once you get planing even on a banana and i've seen this adam robo on a banana at bells you wouldn't think that's the right kind of wave for a banana but if you can be in the top part of the wave because you've got grip from the concave and the rocker then you end up generating speed and then you're planning on nothing so it actually gets more speed than a flat rockered neutral board But as everyone knows, once the speed drops down, then the amount of rocker is the problem, not so much the nature of it.

So they had this 2026 Big Wave Challenge Awards the other night.

Tom Lowe came out on top as, I think they call it Surfer of the Year.

They do.

Yeah.

It's a lot of Mulligmore, a bit of Nazare.

Zoe Chait won the women's paddle wave of the year at Toto Santos.

Um, As you mentioned, Tom Lowe took home Surfer of the Year, but did you see Nacho Gonzalez's Ride of the Year for his paddle and wave at Mulligmar?

I feel like I have.

Cousin Ryan got a new Jack Johnson pillow.

With Tom Curran holding our key.

Pillow.

The trifecta is complete.

Right, right, right, right, right, right.

But no one's carved like Jon Jon, I feel like.

Tom Curran has.

But Tom Curran's more smooth and stylish.

You can make boards for the best server in the world and have them win a comp on your board, but if you can't build a business around it and infrastructure around it, then it's just kind of going to go to waste.

But when you're coming up and you see all the success of Channel Islands through the 80s and 90s, yeah, sure, who wouldn't have wanted to make boards for Tom Curran? Cause he just made everything look so beautiful.

But right now I'm just, we're in a place where like, I think Yago is the most beautiful goofy foot on tour.

And I think, you know, arguably Griffin's probably the best all around two foot to 12 foot regular foot on tour.

I think there's a group that all have a claim to it.

Tom Curran, American three-time world surfing champion, really uncanny natural ability.

Mark Okolupo, the Australian goofy footer who had this just raw animal talent and a remarkable personal story as well.

Mark Richards, Australian world champion from Newcastle.

I'm like flip on a movie.

And then I, for the first time I watched the search, the Tom Curran movie, the search.

Yeah.

And he said, you know, when, when things aren't really going your way and you know, you're not feeling what you want to feel.

You know, because it's Jock Sutherland.

That's like, you know, Tom Curran sending you a letter or Kelly Slater sending a letter to the editor in a magazine, which back in the day was a big deal if you got your letter printed in Surfer magazine.

And the letter section, of course, was a big, big, big deal.

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