Sierra Kerr: the future of women’s surfing
She is only 13, but I can tell you this much, California’s Sierra Kerr is the future of women ’ s surfing in the world, if she wants to be. The problem is she is so talented across many disciplines that she might just choose one of her other sports to pursue.
X Games, skateboarding, snowboarding or, would you believe, golf. It seems that whatever this young lady puts her hand to, she is excellent. Or being so good, she might just get bored and be over it? Or does she bloom early and fade away?
If Sierra Kerr continues on her current trajectory she could become not only women’s world champ but pretty nearly men’s world champ too (if they let her compete in men’s heats). Her surfing is, quite honestly, out of this world.
Dad to the young prodigy is ex pro surfer Josh Kerr, originally from Australia, now living in California. Father Josh is particularly known for his aerial surfing. That is to say rather than just carving on the face of the wave, to hit the lip through turns and ramp into the air and land and carry on surfing or rotate in the air through a turn or execute a flip or somersault of some sort and land and continue surfing.
At a time this sort of trick surfing was a little frowned upon by traditionalists or power surfers but today it is pretty much a part of mainstream.
Perchance Josh Kerr has been a part of driving aerial surfing into mainstream over the years being the designer, creator, administrator of the Red Bull air show — surfing contests dedicated to aerials all over world venues. These are skate and snow half-pipe manoeuvres that have made their way from the ramps into surfing culture. There was a time when free surfers tended to win the air shows from mainstream competitive surfers but today the top WCT surfers tend to dominate the air too.
Sierra at age two began her countdown to lift off on the nose of her dad’s skateboard. She would stand on the nose with dad holding her while they skated down the road together and the bug bit.
Fearless athlete Josh Kerr says “you never know fear until you have a child” admitting that it was a tough ask to let his little daughter charge vertical skateboard drops.
Net result, she was punching skate airs at seven and her command of skate, speed, power, placement and body geography has transferred to surfing.
While the Kerr family live in California, they also seem to have significant access to the Texas BSR wave pool and Kelly Slater’s Wave Ranch wave pool. These perfectly repeated waves have allowed Sierra to hone a lot of her surfing to a bizarre level of power and high performance for a 13-year-old.
More than this, young Sierra has been warmly welcomed into the Roxy surf sisterhood, smart international models and surfers who are mentoring her to warmly achieve her full potential. Enter East London’s own Rosy Hodge, a smashingly successful Roxy ambassador of note herself, now also a resident of California and who also appears to be one of Sierra’s mentors.
“Sierra Kerr is the future ofwomen’s surfing and we are lucky to have her. Multi-talented Sierra excels in skateboarding, golf and I think she even plays rugby. Well rounded athlete, I don’t see why she can’t win a world title in multiple categories.
“Her surfing is incredibly progressive and with a supportive, loving family I am sure her journey is going to be a good one. I love seeing how far Sierra has come in such a short time and look forward to watching her success in the future,” says Rosy.
Footage on YouTube of Sierra in the Waco Texas BSP wave pool is phenomenal and the wave is not necessarily easy to ride. Her performance in the Kelly Slater wave pool seems a little challenged by the perfection of the wave. Slater’s wave is so impeccable, it makes the Texas wave look like a dog’s breakfast by comparison.
To add a little bit of salt to the wound, Sierra proves that she is not just a pool star but a real surfer too by tearing up some good waves in the Mentawais.
Mind you, the Ments is so good, it might just as well be a wave pool.
Our own local champion Zoe Steyn is interested but not too phased “very impressive at such a young age. A wave pool is not quite the real thing though (a sentiment echoed by Daniel and Justin Emslie) it would be interesting to see her in the ocean, ” says Zoe.
There will come a day I am sure when South African champion Zoe Steyn is up against Sierra Kerr and won’t it be a pleasure if it happens at some heaving Nahoon Reef. It will be good to see some quality African amandla pitted against the pool cleaning services.
It will be a quality match up.
The future of women’s surfing is certainly very secure.