An extra special welcome to the 30th Edition of The Bodyboard Report! 🎂 🍻🤙

Not only is it a big week for us as a global tribe here at The BBR, it’s also the biggest week of the year for bodyboarding with the Frontón King kicking off on Saturday.

It has been great fun and an awesome learning experience putting this publication together for you these last few months.

I’ve indirectly discovered that this process of researching and reporting taught me more about the sport I love, the industry, history and culture, than I’ve ever thought possible.

If you’re still with me, then I trust you find it the same.

Thanks to all of you for the replies, the stories, and the shout outs.

Keep ’em coming!

Halloween is also coming, and so is The Beast. 🌊

I’m not much of a cake eater, so if you love it here in free boogie town, it’s about time one of you cheap b*stards buy me a beer! 🍻👇

Halloween is 2 weeks away, and a Brazilian brand dropped a range of awesome looking bodyboards called The Horror Collection.

The 3 models are called Stalker, Iconic Terror, and Evil.

My best pal Quintin loves this stuff. He wants one, and refuses to ride it. “It goes on the wall behind my bar next to my Freddy snow globe with the screaming Nancy inside!”

The pitch on the product page is “Terror no slick”, which means terror on the slick. Amazeballs bright colors, extreme shine and art that scares the flipper socks off from a distance. Each board sells for around $350, which is pretty decent for a lifelong nightmare, if you ask me…

Meet Magik Boards, from Santos, São Paulo. Last week I referred to an online comment about the new NMD ArcFlex where some dude said:

👉 “Damn, that’s a good looking board!”

What would he, you, and I say about this? I tend to agree with Quintin…👇

Magik is the bodyboard brand of Magik Importados, an import and distribution company for sports equipment, and it continues a project started by Renan Faccini, a pro bodyboarder with more than 19 years in the sport.

If you’re not familiar… Renan x Josh Garner is the most exciting coin flip on the flip-flop, f-ing hell market! Pure magic, sprinkled with some Hubb-Hardy dust… What a show! You break a neck just watching it…

If you’ve been around, you’ll know Renan as “The Crow”. He’s not your average pro. He’s a sideliner, an alternative and experimental rider who doesn’t fit classic bodyboarding standards.

Raised in the United States, he became the first bodyboarder ever signed to More Core Division (MCD), the surfwear brand Michael Tomson and Jack Denny founded in the 1980s, which has gothic imagery and raw graphics in its DNA.

So a horror collection from his brand makes perfect sense.

He’s also pretty clear about what’s held the sport back. People don’t know what a bodyboard can do, and as he put it, “it’s hard to admire something you do not know.”

Magik has had more names than some riders have had boards.

It started between 2013 and 2014, when Mafia Bros, the distribution company founded by the Faccini brothers, brought the full range of European brand Respect Bodyboards to Brazil.

Skull Boards came next, then Crow Brands in 2018 with Crow Grips, built to reinvent the bodyboard deck pad. From 2021 the board line became Monster Boards.

Today it’s Magik, distributed in Brazil by Orbit Brands alongside Morey Boogie and BZ. The Orbit stable also carries NMD & VS, so Mez from last week’s Recoil edition👇 shares a warehouse with The Crow.

I love this part! In 2014, after an entire summer without decent waves, Renan started developing the 👉 Slasher Pull. (You gotta see this if you never have!)

It was inspired by a portable wakeboard winch, and he rebuilt it into a faster model for bodyboarding. It lets riders hit small wave ramps at high speed and throw big airs in summer conditions.

The Slasher Pull 3.0 TURBO is already in operation and the world’s first winch built for tow outs, letting riders do advanced, speed hungry maneuvers without depending so much on the size of the waves.

A gothic bodyboarder in Santos, building his own tow machine because the ocean wouldn’t cooperate. That sounds about as hardcore bodyboarding as it gets. 🤙

What makes the Horror Collection unique and different is that it’s not imported. The boards are developed and built by NEXFORM, which describes itself as the first factory in Latin America specializing in high performance bodyboards, developing every material specifically for bodyboarding instead of adapting materials made for other products.

Shapes are cut by robotic CNC, so the board you get matches the original model in any size. Because the boards are made in Brazil, riders get direct local support that Asian imports usually can’t offer, plus a 90 day warranty against manufacturing defects.

That word “first” needs a little context, though. The Vilela brothers founded Genesis in Brazil in 1984, and in 2008 Uri Valadão won his world title riding a Genesis board. Fair to say, Brazil has been building bodyboards for a long time.

But a CNC driven factory built only for performance bodyboards, in the country that gave us Tâmega, Neymara and Luna? That may matter far more than any graphic in the near future. NEXFORM hasn’t published any core or stringer specs yet, so watch this space, and I’ll get back to you.

Something wicked this way comes… 🎃

The wait is finally over. From 17-31 October, El Frontón in Gáldar hosts the 14th Gran Canaria Frontón King, the final stop of the IBC World Tour, where the men’s and junior men’s world titles will be decided.

Organizers have a 15 day window to pick the 6 best days, based on swell, wind and tide. All 128 spots are full, with a waiting list, riders from 15 countries, and 70% of them international.

Once more, because I can, Tristan Roberts only needs to complete his first heat to be crowned 2026 world champion. Lekker my Boogie Bok! 💓

What? It’s my 30th birthday party and I’ll p*ss on whatever parade I want to…

👉 Don’t forget my beer 🍻

Beers, bragging, and BS aside, Frontón King is a title of its own. We got US$35,000 and 5,000 ranking points up for grabs. Amaury Lavernhe arrives as the defending 2025 Frontón King, and there’s a real fight for a Top 16 finish, which guarantees a place in the 2027 big leagues.

The juniors have their own showdown. 48 riders from 11 countries will battle for the world title, US$10,000 and 1,000 points, with Frenchman Louka Zaninotto defending his crown. Well, hard to lose your “crown” when they make you surf with a helmet…

And the finale? The closing party runs on 31 October from 17:00 to midnight.

We are talking Halloween, beers, bananas, and butt cheeks, ’cause I dare the crowned king and our new world champ to make a “moon”- light victory run along the cliffs to celebrate a great year for bodyboarding. Reply to send proof. 😉

👉 Watch live at ibcworldtour.com and frontonking.com

Every few editions I come back to the same idea. Our best events survive on one person’s passion, not on institutions. Here’s what it looks like when that person decides they’re done.

Last November, the Annaëlle Challenge in Brittany ran for the final time. It was France’s only international bodyboarding contest, and now it’s a chapter in the history books.

Annaëlle is a slab off an island near Lampaul-Ploudalmézeau in Finistère. The island was privately owned until 2016. It began as a dream wave watched through binoculars from shore, and it’s 10 minutes out by boat.

First run in 2009 by local riders and the Tomahawk Surf Club, it happened only 8 times. Annaëlle needs the right swell, wind and tide all at once, so some years it simply never came. When it did line up, riders, officials and medics made a rough boat crossing to reach it, and everyone finished with the Breton dish Kig Ha Farz.

After 15 years, co-founder Gwen Renambot and his crew were ready to move on. The final edition ran in perfect conditions. Armide Soliveres won it, beating Pierre Louis Costes by just 0.03 points and even throwing a super spinner inside the tube.

Events rarely die from a lack of waves. They die from a lack of people willing to carry them.

So, ask yourself: Who’s carrying yours? 🤙

I asked myself the same question, and I’ll bring you the answer very soon…

The SA Champs at Derdesteen (3rd Rock) are wrapped, and the Southern Cape / Eden District stole the show on Cape Town’s home turf. Catch up from 2 weeks ago 👇

Eden’s Ryno Turketti won the Men’s division, ahead of eThekwini’s (Durban’s) Sihle Xaba and Angelo Ackerman.

Eden’s Suzie Husselmann took the Ladies title, ahead of Lezandre Wolmerans from the Cape Winelands and Cape Town’s Mardi Geldenhuys.

Boys, girls, big dogs, old dogs, young guns, and all sorts…

Battled out in small waves, the SA Champs still triumphed within the great spirit of our sport.

Former SA champ and Eden frontman Vaughn Harris is still ripping at age 47, taking the DK crown, along with best move and best wave.

Sihle Xaba, one of a handful, if not the first recognized Black South African (and in the world?) to pick up bodyboarding competitively, a 90s Morey team rider, is still in the mix and looking stronger than ever. Here’s to you fine gents! 🍻

👉 Catch the Highlights here

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