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Iconic surfer Tom Curren is heralded as one of the greatest surfers and barrel riders of all time, and he recently visited South Africa to surf against 80s World Tour rival Mark “Occy” Occhilupo in a special heat as part of the Billabong Pro WCT event in Jeffreys Bay.
During his time in South Africa the living legend stopped over in Durban for a few days to hang out with close friend Frankie Oberholzer and, aside from scoring some sick waves on the KwaZulu-Natal Coast, Tom also pulled into Wave House Durban to try his hand at flowboarding with his two sons Frank (14) and Pat (12). “I really enjoyed my time on the D-Rex,” said Tom after spending more than two hours getting barreled with his boys. “I was invited to one of the first flowboarding demos in Norway about 10 years ago, but I just couldn’t get it right. That was a left though, and it was really difficult learning on my backhand. The wave here in Durban has both a left and right though, so it was great to try it out on my forehand and I picked it up a bit better.”
The three time world surfing champion’s legendary tube-riding ability was really put to the test on the Flow Barrel, but Tom was up to the challenge and by the end of his session was getting barrels of up to 30 seconds long.
“Getting barreled on the Flow Barrel is really different to the ocean, but it’s also similar in a lot of ways. The view is certainly the same, except for having a skate park and buildings looking back at you while you’re in there,” he joked. “But riding a flowboard is nothing like surfing which really surprised me. The boys and I loved it though and I’m sure they’re going to be wanting to hit the wave in San Diego regularly now, especially because they’re both goofy-footers.”
Tom and Occy incidentally surfed two heats against each other at J-Bay, winning one each and keeping their head to head victories on an even 9 – 9. There are already plans to continue the rivalry. Maybe on a Flowbarrel somewhere?
Find out more about the Clash of the Icons on the Billabong Pro website. CLICK HERE
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