Rip Curl Raglan Pro 2019

It was the year 1988, I had just for the first time lost my Raglan virginity, still, till this day I can feel the knot in my stomach as we drove through town, me squashed in the back seat of the older boy’s car as the grom.

The weeks before my call up the lads had been talking up raglan and the entire drive down were spinning yarns and building me up for this moment, wait till you see it grom! Arriving at the top of the hill the older lads pulled over to let me out, I’m not sure why but I was nervous as hell. But as soon as I got out of that back seat and looked over the edge of that hill I was mesmerised, this was heaven! Being a goofy I couldn’t at that point imagine my life being any better, lines stacked to the horizon and six waves peeling at once. Later that afternoon two guys paddled out and took control of the lineup by the name of Ratso and Lynden Kennings, right there in front of my eyes I was witnessing NZ’s best and one of the world’s best in Ratso at the time in the flesh.

Later that year on some drizzly afternoon I was kicking it at home and on the TV came some surfing, and within a few seconds I jumped up in a mad panic trying to find a videotape to record it. My parents had recently split and dad’s secret tapes that we weren’t allowed to touch were still in the cabinet, they were in blue plastic cases, but hey he wasn’t around so I took the opportunity to swoop and quickly rewound the Beta Cassette, pushed record and sat back to marvel at my first sight of a Pro-NZ Surf Comp “The Raglan pro”.