Five surfboards lost at sea, the miraculous story of the journey, and how they made their way back to their owners.
In the ultimate case of the ripple effect, here are five surfboards that had a good eye for the narrative. Each piece of fibreglass made a vast, unmanned mission, but for once it isn’t about the journey, but about the connection between those who lost the board, and those who found it.
A Stretch Across Santa Monica Bay
Patrick Miller and his parents lost a lot in the Palisades fire, including what he thought was one of his favorite Stretch surfboards.
What Miller didn’t know was that after the board had been picked up by the 70mph offshore wind, blown through his burning house and into the ocean at Carbon Beach.
It spent another month at sea, drifting across Santa Monica Bay, before it recently made landfall at Burn Out in Redondo. There, a lifeguard found it and called Stretch Boards to return it. “I cried when I picked it up,” posted Miller after getting back the miracle board.
From US To The Philippines: With Love
In 2018, Hawaiian surf photographer Doug Falter lost his Lyle Carson gun after a wipeout at Waimea Bay in February 2018.
He immediately posted on social media about the loss of a treasured board he’d ridden the biggest waves of his life on. Eventually, 18 months later, someone did respond. A fisherman found the board near Olanivan Island, in the Philippines, some 5200 miles across the Pacific from Oahu. He then sold the board to his neighbor, a school teacher named Giovanne Branzuela, who wanted to learn how to surf.
Branzuela tracked down Carson via Facebook, who put him in touch with Falter. Falter gave Branzuela the board, and the pair have since set up a charity that delivers much-needed surf and school equipment to the Philippines. “When he reached out to me he just meant good. There were no selfish intentions, all he wanted to do was help his students,” said Falter. “And I felt the same. I just wanted the satisfaction of helping others. It’s weird and serendipitous, and on the whole, just a damn good story.”
Hands Across Half Moon Bay
In California, big wave surfer Jojo Roper spent a winter riding the biggest waves at the USA’s biggest wave, Mavericks, on a special Rusty Preisendorfer 10’3”.
The board was covered in the painted handprints of child cancer patients at his local hospital, as each subsequent summer he auctions the board for charity. On the last day of the 2021 season, the day Roper called the biggest, glassiest, cleanest, most beautiful day he’d ever seen, the board was almost lost forever.
Back in the harbour after the epic day, a distress call was made over the radio for a missing surfer. Roper’s tow partner Lucas Padua rushed out to sea to help on the ski, unaware Roper’s board was in the back, untied. A few days later Roper received a message from the Harbour Master at Half Moon Bay, saying that a fisherman had found his board a few miles off the coast. He’d seen the handprints and messages from the patients and knew it was special. The board raised even more money at the summer auction, given its colourful history. “That surfboard has some good juju,” said Roper. “It was meant to come back, right?”
Barnacled Board Does A 3000-mile Roundtrip
In 2017 Tasmanian surfer Danny Griffiths lost his Brooke Phillips-shaped tow board at the remote big wave spot of Pedro Branco.
Sixteen months later the barnacle-encrusted board was picked up by a pair of fisherman brothers five miles off Magnetic Island, in the Barrier Reef. That’s 1600 miles as the pelican flies from where it was lost. The brothers, understandably, couldn’t track the surfboard’s owner.
That might have been the start and end of the mystery if the fishermen’s parents hadn’t travelled to Tasmania for a holiday a few years later. They mentioned their sons’ find, and the puzzle was slowly put together. Griffiths eventually got the board back, and after a serious de-barnacle, would go back to surf 50-foot waves at Pedro Branco on the runaway board.
Radical Kindness Of A Returned 9-Footer
Hard-charging waterman and talented photographer Dean Dampney was surfing his Jed Done 9-foot quad fin at Depot Bombie on the NSW south coast.
Until what he described as a two-story-high backless wall of water sent him for a 90-minute swim, with his board nowhere to be seen.
A few weeks later, he received a call from Darren Urquart, who told him that his sons Hamish and Jono had found the gun a few miles down the coast. Unable to tie down a big-wave gun to their car, they hid it in the dense bush and gave detailed pick-up instructions. A few weeks later, his favourite board was back under lock and key. “It was another reminder for me that people can meet each other with deep generosity, the utmost integrity, and radical kindness.”