New book explores surf scenes from South Africa to Sweden
Beyond the inevitable pictures of surfers with expensive watches, the Breitling Book of Surfing tells many unexpected stories
It would be easy to be cynical about the new Breitling Book of Surfing – a huge, lavishly illustrated tome published under the auspices of the titular luxury watch brand. Yes, they could certainly have done without the awkwardly posed image on page six of “Breitling’s surfer squad”: top pros Kelly Slater, Stephanie Gilmore and Sally Fitzgibbons all staring at nothing in particular while flashing conspicuous, chunky chronographs at the camera. And yes, they could probably have given a little more thought to the obligatory corporate intro, which states that the book is “Breitling’s way of acknowledging [surfing’s] vibrant culture and its alignment with the brand’s values of casual, inclusive, sustainable luxury.” (Ask your average surfer to what extent they think their favourite pastime is aligned with the values of “casual, inclusive sustainable luxury” and at best you’ll get a bewildered shrug in return.)
If you’re prepared to look beyond the slightly clunky framing, however, this is actually a very worthwhile project.
For starters, Breitling have done themselves a big favour by selecting a proper surf scribe to take care of the words. Ben Mondy served as deputy editor of Australia’s Tracks magazine from 2000 to 2005. He has since written for other esteemed wave-riding publications including The Surfer’s Journal, and he helmed the BBC’S coverage of surfing’s Olympic debut at the Tokyo Games in 2021. Sure, a jobbing copywriter could have supplied adequate word-salad for a project like this but Mondy is the real deal, and so is the prose.
Second, the book is based on a genuinely interesting concept. Subtitled “A Ride to the Heart of Community”, it sets out to offer insights into various different surfing cultures around the world, some well-known (the North Shore of
Oahu in Hawaii, Biarritz in south-west France), some less-so (Greece, Uruguay, Sweden).
Third, Mondy has tracked down some properly interesting subjects to interview for each location-based chapter. Some of these are world-famous pros (in addition to Slater, Gilmore and Fitzgibbons, other wellkent faces include South Africa’s Mikey February and French surfer Jeremy Flores) but there are also plenty of names that won’t have cropped up on many surfers’ radar screens, resulting in a winning mixture of the familiar and the unexpected.
On the whole, it’s the lesser-known surfers from less storied surfing locations who steal the show. When Athenian surfer, model and entrepreneur Effie Vrakas first got into surfing, she estimates there were perhaps only 20 surfers living in the whole of Greece. Finding the right conditions required a lot of dedication and a lot of travel, but – as Mondy points out – the rewards included getting to surf in some incredible locations: “white, empty, windswept beaches that were guarded by ancient ruins... waves [breaking beneath] black cliffs studded with green Mediterranean pines that had taken root during the Ottoman rule.” The fact that Vrakas’s husband started Greece’s first surf shop also gives her a perfect insight into how the surf scene in this largely surf-starved nation has developed, to the point where now “fewer and fewer waves go unridden on the good days.”
Meanwhile, hands up who knows anything about surfing in Uruguay? Me neither. But Mondy is here to enlighten us, with a fascinating interview with local longboard star Julian Schweizer, in which he describes how the characteristics of the nation’s waves have directly influenced the surfing culture there.
“The waves here really suit longboards because they are long and mellow,” he explains. “It’s more about letting the waves dictate your movements, rather than the other way around. The shape of the waves has shaped the style and attitude of the surfing community.” As a result, surfing in Uruguay in the mid-2020s sounds a lot like surfing in southern California in the mid-1960s. “The surfing community in Uruguay has grown a lot in the last ten years,” Schweizer says, “surf and coffee shops are springing up, and there’s a classic California longboard vibe to it all. It’s growing in a really fun and beautiful way.”
Almost by definition surfers are travellers, so often when Mondy’s interviewees come to talk of their surfing “home” they are talking about adopted homes rather than the places where they grew up. Eleven-time world champion Kelly Slater may have come of age in the variable waves of Florida, for example, but for the purposes of this book, he has identified the Hawaiian Island of Oahu as his primary residence.
“In the last few decades, the North Shore of Oahu has become the closest thing I have to a permanent base,” he says. “The connection with the waves, and the surfing community, is deep and real.”
Perhaps the most telling passage of the Slater interview, though, comes when he is discussing his formative years in Florida. “I remember being in the first grade and saying to myself, ‘I think I’m a surfer,’” he says. “I felt I was kind of part of this tribe. I’d always been a bit of an outsider, but then I was inside this thing.”
Which, I suppose, is the whole point: if you surf then you’re a member of the surfing community. It’s as simple and (yes, Breitling) inclusive as that.
It’s the lesserknown surfers from less storied surfing locations who steal the
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