A few weeks ago, we stumbled across a clip floating around in the vastness of the internet that took our breath away. In it, a surfer we’d never heard of looked down the line of a thunderous, windblown right-hander, hesitated for just a second, then made a visible decision to throw caution to the wind. He proceeded to get pummeled, and it was inspiring. In his hesitation, one could almost hear what he was thinking: “Probably not going to make it, but I’m going anyway.” He gave it his all, and in this case, it didn’t work out. But then, it can’t always.
Then, a few days later, we got a lovely email from Simone Robb, the current ISA world longboard champ, who let us in on who the surfer was. His identity was surprising because although he surfs like a grown man, he’s not. “Super sweet of the Inertia to post my kids fat hiding on your site,” she wrote about the video. “How about posting one he makes. I have plenty. He is 15 and already surfs 5x overhead a good bit. It helps having Andrew Marr as his stepdad, no doubt!”
Yes, you read that right. Manoa Jye Robb is 15. He’s from Kommetjie, Cape Town, South Africa, and he is absolutely ripping. Simone takes photos of him, and the sequence above shows just how dedicated this kid is.
See more from Manoa on Instagram@Manoa_jye.r
