Chayne on Jeffrey’s Bay 2024.
A couple of years ago, after some twenty years of crowded sand bottom points, endless closeout beachbreaks and logjam Gold Coast traffic, I packed up and moved south. Following the dominant theme in my life, there was little planning involved, so when I finally fetched up on the outskirts of Ulladulla, down in Yuin country, it was pure happenstance that I found myself occasionally bumping into Chayne Simpson both in the water and out. I first got to know Chayne over a decade ago through our mutual involvement in Legless.tv. I’ve always found him a kind of calming presence. He exudes a blend of confidence, contentment and charisma that never fails to improve my mood. Given that my mood is usually fairly positive, I took these occasional meetings to be good omens indeed.
Late last May I pitched up at one of my regular spots for an early morning surf check – it was small and clean but already starting to choke on the incoming tide - and found Chayne leaning on the rail next to me. We both had things to do, so the conversation was brief, but I thought to ask if he was planning on making the trip to J-Bay for the World Title competition a few months ahead in August. He didn’t think so. “If it was J-Bay proper, I’d definitely go, but it’s going to be on The Point, which isn’t the same. It’s a lot of money just to get there, so probably not.” I left shortly after to go about my day and that was that.
Over the next couple of months life became pretty busy and a couple of nagging injuries kept me out of the water, so I saw nothing of Chayne but I kept an eye on developments with the Jeffreys Bay contest all the same. I wasn’t really surprised to learn – in an entirely incidental way - in mid-August that Chayne was going to South Africa after all. Not long after that I watched on YouTube livestream as he beat Albert Munoz in the Open final. The next time I saw Chayne was a cool Friday afternoon in mid-September, when we sat on his front verandah to talk through the 2024 World Title and what it all means for him.
R. People are saying it was the best run kneeboard contest they’ve ever seen.
C. 100% Couldn’t fault it. They put a lot of money into it. Gigs (Celliers) is quite well known over there, he’s done a lot for surfing, a lot for kneeboarding I’d imagine he probably called in a few favours from people. That’s just an assumption, but … Micky Kirsten - CineFx - was the main sponsor. I don’t know where the rest of the money came from, but I know it would have been an expensive gig. They had live broadcast, jetskis, professional judging. We have a contest here and we ask for priority and they say ‘Oh, we can’t afford the extra judge.’ They had everything over there - it looked like a WSL contest.
Gigs has some connections!
I can’t imagine there’s anyone else in kneeboarding who could have done what Gigs did.
Do you think, with the bar set so high with this one in South Africa, that it’s going to be achievable elsewhere?
I couldn’t imagine it happening here. I couldn’t see us getting the money here. New Zealand, I reckon they’ve got pretty good connections over there, with government grants and things like that, they can get access to those sorts of things. I just don’t think we can. I just don’t think we’re seen as a good business opportunity.
So is that what it is? We’ve got to be seen as a business opportunity? What’s different about SA? What is it, is it just Gigs? Cos he’s a kneelo, and he’s got the contacts and the experience, he can say ‘Well I know how to do this’?
He’s very well respected.
And Mickey Kirsten’s a kneelo too.
Yeah, kneeloes in high places!
So how long before the contest did you decide to go?
Probably 4-5 weeks, I got a message from Steen and he said, ‘Are we going to J Bay’ and I said ‘I’ll go if you go’, and he said ‘Lets go!’ and then he organised it all. I spoke to Shauna about it and she said, “Do it!’ She knows I’ve always wanted to surf J-Bay. It wasn’t long. Most people didn’t know I was going until I was going. Usually if you’re going on a trip you book it 6 months in advance and somehow run into people and you tell them and so they know you’re going. Well … Shauna would say ‘Oh Chaynes off tomorrow’ and they’d go ‘Where you going?’ and I’d say ‘Oh, South Africa’ and they’d go ‘What? tomorrow?’ So it was a pretty quick turnaround. I didn’t tell most people it was the World Titles, I just told them it was a surf trip with a bunch of mates. Word got out, obviously, but I wasn’t telling people I was going in the World Titles, but they all found out.
So why didn’t you tell anyone?
I dunno. I don’t really have a reason. I was just going on a surf trip. Didn’t want to make a fuss. I was just going on a surf trip, and there was a contest there. That’s … like I was saying, my whole approach to it - I just didn’t surf the contest, I surfed Supers. The first day we got there, it was massive and it was pumping and Shauna rang me and said ‘How’d you go, I saw the photos’ and I said ‘I just surfed perfect Supers’ and she goes ‘Job done’.
Everything from that point on was a bonus.
Yeah. And that was pretty cool from my wife too. I guess a lot of wives would be like ‘Oh, you’ve gotta do well in the contest’, but she was just pumped that I got real good waves at a place I’ve wanted to surf forever and she was just satisfied with that, which was pretty cool. So, it was more like a surf trip than going for a contest.
So lots of surfing Supers - any practice sessions at the Point?
Not once. Actually, I lie cos the first two days when it was quite big, I couldn’t find the keyhole to come in at Supers, so I surfed my way down and then caught a wave in at the Point.
And that was your practice wave?
One wave from each session, on the way in. That was it. It’s just another wave. You take off on a wave and you do what it does, you do what it asks you to do, I suppose.
What did it ask you to do?
Cutbacks, lots of cutbacks!
And a big bash at the end.
Yeah, it had a good end section on it, especially when it was bigger. When it was smaller you couldn’t really get to that section, it would run away, which … the end section runs away from you so you’re coming at it, at it, at it, thinking you’re going to get it, but it keeps moving away from you. When it’s bigger, it comes at you. It was quite intimidating to hit that end section. You’ll see a couple of photos - there’s one of Gigs especially, turning out - and it’s heaving. It’s a pretty big section to hit. Guys were getting smashed hitting it, guys were sending it, and there were guys in their sixties, fully sending it. It was pretty cool to see. I don’t know if they wanted to win or just wanted to show they could do it, to impress people or whatever, but they were doing it. Just that push from having everyone there that made everyone’s level go up. There were some guys ripping that I’d never heard of.
That’s what you want though. If the surf’s good, then that’s going to happen. If the surf’s shit, it’s just shit.
Yeah, at J-Bay we got very lucky.
For the duration of the contest, you and Albert and Steen took up residence at Dreamland, a two-storey house right in front of Supertubes. On the morning of the final day, you were in bed when Steen opened the curtains and looked out.
Yeah. He went, ‘Oh hoh, it’s BIG’ and I remember laying in bed thinking oh fuck, what’s going to happen here today, and he said ‘This is you; you’ve got this! You’ve trained for this every day just by going surfing in Ulladulla. This is you.’ That sort of gave me quite a bit of confidence. That was before the semi. We were the second heat out, Albert went first heat, I was in the next one, and just … the way Steen was talking that morning, building my confidence, made me feel so comfortable out there.
The conditions during the final were ideal for your style of surfing.
I like a big smooth canvas to work on! I dunno, it just all seemed to click. I’m not a big wave guy. It was 6ft, it wasn’t BIG. A 6-8 ft wave like that, yeah, comfy as. That’s what I like to surf now. Fully in my comfort zone. Just because I’d been surfing so much in that two weeks, I knew … you know the keyholes there are a real drama, but they didn’t worry me. I’d just sort of jump off the rocks and float out, whereas everyone was worried about it. You’ll see some photos of the keyhole where there’s like ten-foot waves, but you just, I dunno, you take a breath and duckdive and get out there. The jetskis were there, that was a big plus. Knowing they were there helped the confidence too, knowing you could ride a wave all the way in and still get back out to get another one, that really took the pressure off.
You love connecting full power turns, carving smooth arcs on big, open faces …
Style in surfing is pretty important. To look good on a wave, you know. There’s a lot of guys who surf really well but look terrible on a wave. It’s Italo compared to Ethan Ewing - I’ll watch Ethan all day, but I’ll get pretty bored with Italo pretty quickly.
The best surfing often appears effortless - each turn flows into the next so that the whole ride seems to be simply doing what comes naturally on the wave. I know you rank Simon Farrer as the best ever kneeboard surfer. It’s obvious you’ve drawn elements from Simon’s surfing: line, economy of movement, precision and above all, flow. Yet no-one could say that you’re a Farrer clone.
No. I think our styles are quite different, I’m a lot more upright, whereas Simon’s hunched and forward. His arms aren’t moving heaps, he’s just there the whole time. I’ve probably taken parts of his surfing: the whole not having to fit a million turns in, go around a section cos the next one’s … putting the turns where they’re supposed to be on a wave, that’s what he does, and I’ve definitely taken that from his surfing. Definitely.
I want to ask you about something else. Pretty much at the end of the street here is (a reefbreak, predominantly a sectiony right-hander popular with locals and blow-ins alike.) It can be excellent sometimes, but it’s a fickle spot, often an exercise in frustration. I couldn’t help thinking of it while I was watching the final.
Ha ha! THAT wave is a lot like where we had the contest! The Point is definitely a better version of it, but, well … before we went, the reef here was breaking quite often and I was out there quite often. A lot of that had to do with the fact I had things to do here (at home), and its right there, so I was just surfing that. Surfing that wave got me over there without meaning to have that happen. It was just uncanny that it was breaking. It’s not a wave you’d look at and think ‘It’s like J-bay’ - but it’s similar to where we had the contest. It’s not a predictable wave, you’ll have a section come down here and you have to go around it and readjust, and another section will pop up there - it was really good preparation, but not on purpose. It was a happy accident.
You said earlier that you had a lot of strong support from Kyle Bryant - he wasn’t able to make the trip himself but was able to watch heats live on YouTube. He took on a mentoring role via SMS messages throughout the contest?
Yeah, I felt that luck was on my side. He actually said that. Kyle said in his messages that the cards were falling into place, ‘Luck’s fully on your side for this whole contest’. He was watching the live feeds, watching the free surfs, watching who was getting knocked out. Gavin Colman went down early, he was a very big threat. He was surfing with me at Supers every day, first one out every morning. There was one day there that was only 2-3ft, sort of semi-onshore, I think Gav may have gone down then. I don’t know, I didn’t see his heat.
A day when those who rely on power paid the price?
Well, yeah … I’ve been surfing my whole life in a variety of different waves. I can surf the grovelly stuff too, I can still make it work, but I just don’t enjoy it. Someone like Albert, he’s the gun in that stuff, he’s almost unstoppable in that. This isn’t a write-off of Albert at all. In 2-3ft sloppy waves, I don’t reckon anyone can beat him - he still throws spray, he still gets it vertical. I don’t enjoy doing it. I feel like I can do it if I have to, but probably not to the calibre that he does. You know, if that final had been in 2-3ft onshore waves it might have gone the other way.
But it wasn’t, and it didn’t: it was smooth water, a strong swell and a favourable tide, jetskis, real-time commentary and live-streamed video. Two good mates in a world title final going down to the wire, with you and Albert both taking potentially winning waves in the last minute. Your last wave was the last of the heat, scored you a 9 and you took the Open World Title with a heat score of 16.17 to Albert’s 14.43. Was it a kind of redemption for you after that 2020 Dunedin victory, the one you didn’t defend in Portugal in 2022?
That’s what made this one such a meaningful win: that it was held in good solid waves. That final in New Zealand was the worst waves I’ve ever had in a contest. I won with two 4s. This one I got a 9 on my last wave. It seems like everyone who surfs in Ulladulla was watching and it wasn’t embarrassing. They’ve all said how good it was to watch. They’ve all said they haven’t seen kneeboarding like that - ever - over all the competitors. ‘I didn’t know you guys could do that. It looked so smooth on those waves.’ You know, when they said they were going to do the live feed I was worried, but no-one’s had a negative thing to say about it.
That was an important factor for you, wasn’t it? Why?
I wanted people to watch it and think ‘Kneeboarding looks fun’, or not just fun, but impressive too. And they did watch it and they are saying that, so that’s a pretty big deal, don’t you reckon?
No pictures of you in the local paper?
I don’t know that there even is a local paper anymore! I think it’s all about Instagram and Facebook now. The support I got from down here was unreal. You know, the Ulladulla Boardriders, Aqua Surf shop, all the people just putting things up on their Facebook or Insta – ‘Check this out, Chayne at the World Titles, you can watch it here.’ Never had that in Wollongong, not even close to anything like that. In saying that though, Sandon Point Boardriders shared a thing saying ‘Chayne used to live here, he’s in the World Titles, check this out’. Yeah, definitely the most support I’ve ever had going into a contest, for sure.
Did that help?
Oh yeah, 100%. Just, if you could go back through my phone and see the amount of well-wishes I got when I was going there, before it had even started: it was pretty incredible, like the people that wanted me to win, that’s pretty incredible. It makes you heaps keener to win when people want you to win.
So the boards you were riding are the same you’ve been riding for years: the burgundy board …
Yeah, the one burgundy board! There’s about 15 of them, it’s a bit of an in-joke with Parkesy. Everyone thinks I’m on this one burgundy board all the time, it’s like - why does this board work in two-foot slop and it works at 8ft J-Bay as well? It’s actually a lot of different boards. Most of the contests I’ve been in over the last four or five years I’ve been on my grovel board. This one I was on my step-up. It’s a 5’9“. It’s more of a pin. My standard boards are 5’7”, my grovellers are 5’6”, this one’s just got a lot more pin in it. It’s the board I’d ride at waves around home most of the time. I had a fair few surfs on my 6’0”. I could have ridden that in the final. Looking back, I probably would, I was a little bit undergunned on the 5’9” at times. There’s a couple of waves you can see in the footage where I’ve gone to hit it and haven’t got there in time. I would have got there on time on the 6’0”. I don’t ride the 6’0” very often, you need a big wall, you need a bit of area to move, obviously. It’s alright to have a big board to get onto the wave, but then if the wave doesn’t give you room to move when you are on it, you don’t want to be on a big board .... Albert rode his 6’0”. It’s pretty much the same as mine. He was drawing nice lines on it but again, I think he was getting smaller waves. He should have been on the bigger waves, then he might have done a bit better. He still did well. I think he was beating me until I got my last wave.
It was close, but he didn’t beat you, did he?
Yeah, I think he got a wave, and I caught the one behind him and the wave that he got put him in front and then I got the wave behind him and got the 9. So it was pretty lucky.
Did you know at that time, that you’d got the score?
No. I didn’t know. I figured it was a pretty good score but I didn’t think it was a 9, and I didn’t know what he got, I just knew that his wave was a bit smaller and probably wasn’t going to allow him as much. He was paddling for it and he was going ‘You gonna use priority?’ and I went ‘I will if I have to.’ And he said are you gonna use it on this one? And I went ‘No, you go.’ I knew there was a bigger one behind it, so he went that one and I got the next one.
So, in the last minutes of the final it was just, ‘Oh no, you go’ …
Yeah, but I knew there was a better one behind it. I could have blocked him. I had priority, but if I had, he would have had the one behind me, so I had to make that choice. So to get back to the other question, I was on the jetski going back out and there was a minute to go. At that point I didn’t know if I had the score. We couldn’t hear a thing, the jetski riders were giving us our scores. And I had like a minute, so I’m going ‘Gotta get back out – go go go’ – and he - the ski guy - was just cruising. I don’t know if he knew I had the score or not, but then I jumped off the ski and was paddling and he calls out ‘ 9.2’ or whatever it was, and that was it. I just paddled over and caught one in and that was the end of the heat. That’s when I knew, when he gave me the score.
Was it a good feeling?
Yeah. When I was coming in … you know it was a bit of a monkey off my back, cos I’ve always been … plenty of people say I’m a small wave guy - if the waves are small I’m going to win the contest, cos I’m small. So to win it in good bigger waves, that was the whole feeling for me – ‘There you go, I can do it’. I knew I could do it, Steen knew I could do it, he was telling me every day, but I felt like half the people didn’t know I could do it in decent waves.
The small wave guy.
Yeah, me and Albert. The small wave guys, we’ve always been told that. So to get us at 1 and 2 in good surf, that’s where that thing ends I reckon.
That’s crazy, isn’t it.
Well we just don’t have contests in bigger waves. People aren’t out filming, so you don’t see much footage of kneeboarding, so when people see us surf, they just see us at contests, so they just go ‘these guys are’ … there’s heaps of footage of me online at Pipe - it’s only 4ft, it’s not big.
So. what’s big? There are waves around here that get up to like twenty feet. That’s huge.
I’m not surfing that! That’s big. I think there’s calling someone a small wave guy and calling someone a big wave guy, I’m neither of those – I’m just a guy! I’m happy at 6 to 8 feet, unless it’s heaving on dry rock, but if it’s safe like that was, it’s good. But I’m not kneeboarding waves over ten foot, it’s just too bouncy on the knees. I’ve had some days out around here when it’s been ten foot and I’m just bouncing! It’s gotta be super clean or you just bounce off. And that’s only fun for people watching from the rocks.
Given the logistical hurdles - access to a quality surf break at the right time of year, an adequate waiting period, the availability of qualified judges, (including enough to run a workable priority system), internet access, video cameras and operators for a live feed, commentators, food trucks, merchandise, PAs, press and promotion - do you think it will be possible to produce a contest of this quality in future? Will it happen again at J-Bay?
There was talk of it, but I think we only got to have it (at J-Bay) this year because they didn’t run the WSL contest there. It was the best winter they’ve had in 60 years. I’ve never seen so many teeth at a kneeboard contest, ever. Everyone was smiling. Even the sun came out.
Maybe 2024 at J-Bay will forever stand alone as the year it all came together. Whatever happens from now on, one thing is certain: every World Title contest is going to be judged by a new standard, and that goes for the surfing too. Who are the next generation moving into the top ranks?
Owen Fairweather, Liam Taurens and Tom Novakov, although Tom is hardly a newcomer. Tom looked like the one to beat. On a righthand point like that … I was quite impressed with him, he came out at Supers one day and he was killing it - good style, good bloke in the water too, not all frantic and carrying on upsetting people, he just cruises. Owen’s the one though, he’s just 18. He’s the next big thing for sure. I don’t think you’d find anyone who’d argue with that.
So the NSW south coast’s long-standing dominance of kneeboarding might be coming to an end?
It’s hard to say. Owen’s just one guy, but there seem to be quite a few kneeloes in Victoria, just underground dudes jumping out when there’s a swell. You always see someone out at Bells and Winkipop when you see video of the big swells.
When we look at kneeboarding’s future we tend to despair at the lack of new young blood adopting the low centre of gravity approach. What’s your take on it?
Theres not a heap around, but we’re still ticking over, aren’t we? I don’t think it’s as big an issue as everyone carries on about. A lot of guys start kneeboarding when they’re 30, 35, for one reason or another, probably injury, ha ha! I think for kids, it’s not cool. When you’re a kid, you just want to be cool, everyone’s just doing what their mates are doing, no-one wants to stand out.
Your two boys are pretty keen and competent surfers, but they stand up, right?
They kneel on their surfboards all the time. They might stand up on 5 or 10 waves, then they’ll kneel on a couple - they love it. I probably stand up 50% of the time, I reckon, so they see that I’m not just a kneeboarder, I can stand up too, and they probably think, ’Oh, maybe I can do both.’ I surfed bodyboards till I was about 17, and then slowly moved over to fulltime kneeling. I’ve always stood up on the kneeboard, but now I’ve got a couple of surfboards that I’ll take out quite regularly … on smaller days. If it’s good, I’m on the kneeboard.
Which makes you a bit weird, but a World Champion. A weird World Champion.
Yeah, I’m happy to be weird, but I don’t like that world champion thing. THAT’S weird, I reckon, that we have a world champion. I dunno. People congratulate me on winning this, but … it’s a funny one. I went in a contest. It’s not like a tour. The stand-up guys have their tour, we have just one event. I just won a contest and suddenly I’m world champion. I’m not the best kneeboarder in the world, Simon Farrer is. Someone will say ‘Chayne won the world title, he’s the best kneelo in the world’ and I’ll say ‘No I’m not. I won a contest’. Thats what I’m trying to get at. I don’t think I’m the best kneeboarder in the world.
Will Simon always be the best in your opinion?
Yeah. He’s the one I most looked up to in the water as a kid, he’s still the one I look up to in the surf now, probably. He doesn’t look like he’s slowing down either.
It makes a world of difference to have a competition with good waves where you can see the best surfers at the peak of their ability. The best surfing in the world: that’s what you want to see in the World Championship. That has to be good for the sport. Do you think of it as a sport like that, or is it just a thing that you do?
It's a thing I like to do … but if it’s competition, I guess it is a sport. If I were to grab my gear now and go for a surf, I wouldn’t consider it going to play sport. I’m just going and doing what I enjoy doing, but then as soon as you put a rash vest on and you have judges and what not … it’s a sport.
You were saying before that Albert’s the ultimate strategic surfer - the heat IQ thing - yet here you’ve come ahead of him with your approach, which is completely different. Not just your style, but your contest strategy. You have any thoughts on that?
I think the main difference between Albert and me is that I’m big on wave choice. I’m big on getting the best two waves in the heat whereas Albert will just catch whatever comes his way and rip the shit out of it. My strategy is to wait, get the best two waves in the heat and that allows me to surf them better because they’re better waves.
When you’re free surfing is he the same?
Mm-hmm A wave will be coming, and he’ll go ‘Are you going this, its your turn?’ and I’ll go ‘I’m not going that, it’s shit’. And he’ll turn round and get it and it might be shit but he’ll make it look good anyway. When we surf together, I’ll probably catch half the waves that he’ll catch, cos I’m waiting for the good ones, Albert spends a lot of time catching shitty ones. It’s the same in a heat.
So J-Bay really worked to your advantage because it let your style come to the fore. Just the way you time your turns and flow through critical positions. Obviously, style is just one element in the judging criteria, but your approach - concentrating on just riding the wave, that’s who you are as a surfer and it really worked for you in that contest.
I think when it comes to a good wave it is a lot about style. It's definitely the best win of my life, for sure, but by a long shot. All things considered, the fact that it was probably the greatest contest we’ve had since I’ve been doing it, with the organisation, the live feed, the jetskis, the judges, the priority judges, just everything. That contest had everything, and it had good waves as well. All the guys were there.
And to come out on top, it must fill your heart with pride. Your cup must be runnething over.
Yeah, 100%. And again, it fills my heart with pride and I hope it fills my kids hearts with pride. My youngest just had to do a speech yesterday. They had to choose a country to go to, and he chose South Africa. Never been there, never talked about going there, but he said ‘Dad just won a comp in South Africa’ in his speech, so that’s pretty cool. I reckon if they ran another one there in 4 years’ time they’d be coming with me.
It may not be there, it might be … I just hope they can continue with the venue choice, that they pick the right places.
Yeah, that’s probably the number one most important thing. If you get the right venue the rest of it just comes. The people will come! Like I said, me and Simon particularly weren’t going to go, but … it was at Jeffreys Bay, so we went.
Rob Harwood Legless.tv
Pics: Steen Barnes @16images