The eight-time champion of the world Stephanie Gilmore has filed a stunning tribute to old man Tom Curren, who turned sixty on July 3.
The quasi-retired Stephanie Gilmore, who is thirty-six, was in Jeffrey’s Bay for an exhibition event there and inspired by the great Sonny Miller’s 1993 film Searching for Tom Curren, and which featured Curren’s perfectly tuned second ride wave at J-Bay, Stephanie figured she’d have a shot at replicating the still-lauded beauty of Curren’s ride.
She commissioned the same purple and black suit from Rip Curl and a replica 6’6″x18 1/4 x 2 5/16 thruster, complete with its sexy little bonzer channels, from Australian shaper Mark Rabbidge, who made Curren his J-Bay quiver.
“I recently rewatched Searching for Tom Curren and it was more profound this time around than ever before,” writes Stephanie Gilmore. “His surfing, brought to the screen by Sonny Miller, is as timeless a piece of surf film art as there ever could be. So when I booked to go to Jbay this year, I asked @ripcurl to make me a suit that was similar to Tom’s in the film and I asked @mark_rabbidge_surf_design_ to make me the replica board from Tom’s iconic first wave. A 6’6 thruster with glass on fins. Here is a frame grab by @danscotttt from one of the sessions. All I really wanted was to get an image like this. Very simple I suppose. A driving bottom turn on a perfect Jeffrey’s wave. @curfuffle.”
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Kai Lenny described the coupling of Curren’s equipment and Stephanie Gilmore as, simply, “perfection.”
Watch Curren’s wave here.
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