Filipe Toledo and Tatiana Weston-Webb walked away victorious today at the Vans US Open of Surfing. Big scores, big qualification points and even bigger cheques, in, well, decidely average surf.
But the real news, and the news that Surfing Life have seen coming for quite a while now, is Ethan Ewing’s second place. This week, Ethan took multiple big-name scalps, including three current World Tour surfers; Josh Kerr, Ryan Callinan and the 2015 World Champ, Adriano de Souza. One of North Straddie’s finest, and youngest, is now poised in second place on the ‘QS rankings, a position allowing him to make a real effort at World Tour qualification in 2017.
Around this time last year, Surfing Life travelled to deepest, darkest Sumatra in search of waves for our 2015 Hot 100 Trip. It was the kind of trip that allowed us to really get to know Ethan, as a person and as a surfer. During this process we noticed something about the grom. Something special, both in the water and out. Take some time to read Ethan’s Hot 100 profile and get to know a guy whose name you’re going to be hearing a lot of from here on in.
Words: Wade Davis
On a trip that was choc-loaded with top notch surf names – Kai Hing, Quinn Bruce, Sheldon Simkus, Reef Doig (sorry Riley Laing, it’s a strong name, but not weird enough to be surfy) – one name stood above the rest for its sheer shred-dog credentials. His first name wasn’t much: Ethan; but it’s how his name finished up that really got our barrel bombs blasting: Ewing. Yewing. Yewwwwing. Like Patrick Ewing before him, our Ethan has a long and illustrious future of meme-starring and t-shirt-gracing ahead of him.
That’s, of course, when he starts winning World Titles, and we’re sure that Ethan Ewing will win World Titles. Then our idea for a t-shirt with his face on it, that says, I’m Ethan Yewwwwing, will make perfect sense and sell like hot cakes. How dare we be so presumptuous as to say that young Ethan will win Titles? Well, despite being one of the younger guys on the trip he surfed with the most style, an AI-esque calmness and aggression, and his repertoire of tricks is already right up there; but more than just having the tricks, he does them with a little bit of je ne sais quoi, a waft of the fins here, a little fins first there, a combo everywhere.
Ethan first came really onto my radar earlier this year, when I was running around an unnameable Queensland point on its day of the decade and bumped into Mick Fanning (name drop), who was in town running a grom camp with some sprogly Curl riders, as well as kids on other labels who’d impressed over the course of the Rip Curl Grom Search series. Ethan was one of them. Anyway, I was running around and bumped into a rehydrating Mick, and we were chewing the fat and Ethan caught a wave, and Mick said to me, Have you seen that kid? And I told him that the name was familiar, and Mick said, Mate, he’s the real deal.
Yeah, as if an endorsement from the three (four?) times World Champion, shark beating, all-round good one, Fanno, isn’t enough to get you Yewwwwwing! But Eth-dawg remains cool and calm, quiet even, but confident still, like all future champions built under the reign of Fanno should be. He’s also bloody elusive, hailing from the very quiet North Stradbroke Island, home to stoic, no nonsense types; the types who just like to surf and fish and surf some more. Ethan Kabloowing is so little nonsense that we couldn’t even get a hold of him for an interview and had to do it via Facebook Messenger, like, how perfectly youth-in-2015 is that! So here it is, as it transpired, in all of its uncut glory, the Facebook conversation between me and the guy whose face you’re going to have on the back of your hovercar one day.
Surfing Life: All right. Let’s get some meat. Tell us about your life growing up on Straddie.
Ethan Ewing: I think it’s one of the best places to grow up. There isn’t too much to do other than surf, so that’s all I did with my family and friends growing up – just surfing every day, after school and all day on the holidays, just practising. Everybody on the island is always so interested in when my next comp is and they are really supportive – even while I’m away they ask me how I’m going, it’s amazing, and right now I love it. I get so excited to get back there after a trip.
SL: Sick, so how old were you when you started surfing?
EE: Four years old.
SL: So your parents were surfers? How much influence did they have on your surfing?
EE: Yeah, my parents are both surfers. My mum won the Rip Curl Pro at Bells and me and Dad go down the beach and surf by ourselves all the time, so it’s great! My dad and brothers have helped me so much, they’ve been taking me to comps since I was about eight, and my dad has spent a huge amount of time on the beach filming and supporting me; he’s very supportive and a great mentor.
SL: How much contact have you had with the older Straddie pros?
EE: I always talk to Bede when he’s on the island; he’s one of the nicest guys I have ever met, always interested in my comps. Tim MacDonald and I are really close, we do a few training sessions together and I sometimes go down to the HPC where he works and trains. It’s good to get off the island and watch other surfers down on the Goldy – it motivates me to train harder and get better.
SL: So do you think that you have to get off the island to make it as a pro surfer?
EE: I don’t think I will have to move off the island to make it, but definitely spend a lot of time on the Gold Coast. Time will tell, though.
SL: Would you like to live on the island forever?
EE: Yeah, for sure.
SL: What do you love about it so much? What are your favourite things about your home?
EE: I love how supportive the community is. You only surf with people that you know, nobody else… it’s pretty crazy! And when you come back from a comp and see everybody, and they ask you how you went.
SL: Sharky?
EE: I don’t find it that sharky… there are definitely times when it’s spooky, but I just pick smart times to go surfing if I’m going by myself, or with only a few people. I find Lennox or WA a lot scarier.
SL: Are there enough crew out there to have a good bunch of mates?
EE: Yeah, there aren’t too many kids around my age, so I mainly hang out with my brothers’ friends and people that are a few years older than me.
SL: Where’s your surfing career at right now? What have you done this year?
EE: This year I am just focusing on the pro juniors and the small QS’s. I won my first pro junior this year and got second to Taj [Burrow] in my first QS in Bali. I also won my fourth state title and got a chance to surf in the Quik Pro trials again.
SL: And in the future? When do you want to make the Tour?
EE: Next year I’m focusing on the pro juniors, as it is my last year, and also the QS’s. I want to make the Tour by the time I’m 20, but as long as I keep improving with my surfing and getting good results then I’m happy.
SL: What do you think good surfing will look like when you’re 20?
EE: I think there will be crazier combos and bigger airs, but still good rail game.
SL: And who do you want to compete against when you’re on Tour?
EE: I hope I get to surf against Mick and Kelly.
SL: Whose surfing do you look up to, on and off Tour? And what is it about their surfing that you like?
EE: I look up to my brothers’ surfing; they have both influenced me so much. Only really my brothers and a few other people on the island push my surfing, so I can’t thank them enough for that. My favourite surfer is Andy Irons. I love how creative he was on a wave – you never knew what he was going to do, and also his style and how fluid and fast he went.
SL: A lot of the guys said that you surf like Andy, have you heard that before? How does hearing stuff like that make you feel?
EE: Yeah, a few people have said that. It definitely feels really good, because that’s who I want to look like when I surf, but when I watch myself on footage I can’t see it, really.
SL: What are you scared of?
EE: I’m scared of getting old.
Ethan may be a lad of few words, but at 17 years old, did you have much to say? And, really, his surfing by far and away does all the talking for him. The comparisons to Andy Irons are spot on, the praise from Mick deserved, and our claim that he’ll be a world-beater reasonable. Ethan Ewing is a quiet kid from a small island with a loud future in the big world to look forward to. Remember the name.