About a year ago a good friend of What Youth, local Santa Cruz artist Tim Ward, approached us with a super interesting concept: $20,000 to the best air captured, posted and tagged to the submitting surfer’s Instagram account. Not to mention $3000 for second and $2000 for third. All funded privately by Tim’s company, Life at Sea.

The period was from June 1, 2018 to June 1, 2019 and as you could expect, all the boys came to the party with tons of insane clips. Tim, or “Timma”, as he’s known, also brought in Dave “Nelly” Nelson to help him run the comp. They then asked longtime Santa Cruz legends and qualified airmen themselves, Darryl “Flea” Virostko and Jason “Ratboy” Collins (Damn, they love those nicknames up SC way!), to do the impossible and attempt to pick a winner out of a rather deep list of insane submissions. The period closed as scheduled, the judges convened and the winners were painstakingly selected. As with surfing in general, judging can be a very a subjective call but given the pedigree of the panel, we’re pretty confident they got it right. That may be argued for years to come but some lucky punter is twenty grand richer right now and we just love that.

So without further adieu, the winter of the Planetary Punt is…

1^st PLACE – Lucas Rogers. Lucas grew up in Pungo, Virginia surfing with his whole family while living just 15 minutes from the beach. Rural life, wood burning stove, family first and a rooster named El Monstro. Full on salt of the earth type deal. His Brother, Dylan, also owns the local surf shop, Pungo Board House, now over 12 years deep and as core as it gets. Congratulations Lucas.

Lucas and Snacks

Lucas’s videographer, Christian “Snacks” Woodward, who shared in some of the winnings as well added, “It’s a funny subject, I know there’ll be haters on the win, but they’re gonna be even more flared up at the fact that the camera I used was so low-grade. And to think back to that trip to Panama where the other photogs were fully geared up, and there I was with a super low-budget setup just trying to catch a few shots”.

2^nd PLACE – Reef Heazlewood, from Australia, is no longer a secret. He’s been on a roll of late and the massive Slob Air to reverse he submitted was just plain filthy. Reef has been pulling tons of huge airs in free surfs and even added an insane wildcard showing at the WSL Quik Pro season opener on the Goldy earlier this year. Watch out, this kid is going big. Clip by Lachlan Mackinnon.

3^rd PLACE –  Brad Flora. Brad hails out of Ocean City, Maryland and joins a long list of very talented surfers that have come from the area. Underground surf rat / punk rocker, Brad is a real talent and a great dude per his good friends. To that point, Brad does shit like take tons of boards to Third World countries to give to the local groms (@letthekidssurf). And, we hear he slays it on the guitar. Brad’s huge frontside revo was a contender from the minute we saw it. Clip by: Carlo Coral.

Life At Sea sends a big Thank You to all contestants, their filmers and photogs – so many great airs!

Special recognition to Matt Meola, who graciously withdrew his absolutely contending submission when he realized it was shot outside of the event window. Classy move right there.

Also, huge thanks to Dave Nelson, Jason Collins, Darryl Virostko and Guerin Myall.

What Youth Editor’s note: Through his company, Life at Sea, Tim Ward not only funded this super rad contest but also donates tens of thousands of dollars each year to various ocean clean-up related groups and functions. Surfing needs more guys like Tim and the Santa Cruz area is lucky to have him. Huge props Tim.

El Monstro, the Rooster