June 10, 2024 Issue

Pick of the Issue this week is William Finnegan’s superb “The Long Ride.” It’s a profile of surf legend Jock Sutherland. Finnegan visits the seventy-five-year-old Sutherland at his home on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. He surfs with him. And he chronicles his remarkable life. In 1969, Sutherland was the acknowledged No. 1 surfer in the world. But instead of cashing in on his fame, he took a different path. Finnegan writes,

Jock built a different sort of life on his home coast. He’s seemingly everybody’s favorite roofer, a part-time farmer, a revered elder with garrulous tendencies. I’ve heard him called “the mayor of the North Shore.” My old starstruck view of him was pure projection. In truth, he was, from an early age, leading a strange, half-wild, quite complicated existence.

That “strange, half-wild, quite complicated existence” involves a stint in the U.S. Army. It involves drugs. And it involves jail. After that, it involves roofing. Sutherland became a roofer, a very successful one, apparently. But most of all, Sutherland’s existence involves surfing. He's spent nearly his whole life at it. My favorite parts of the piece are Finnegan’s descriptions of Sutherland riding the waves. For example:

Not long ago, I sat on the beach and watched Jock surf alone at ‘Ehukai, the beach park that includes Pipeline, on a small day when random soft blue peaks and walls were running east across the sandbars. There was nobody else out. He seemed to be always on a wave, milking it down the beach, lanky and graceful on a nine-foot board, expertly reading the vagaries of each swell, pulling out just before the shore break, then paddling back out at an accelerated pace and gliding into another one. It was a master class in making the most of small, disorganized surf, and in aging elegantly as a surfer.

One of the coolest aspects of this great piece is that Finnegan is in the water with Sutherland. They surf together. Finnegan isn’t just observer; he’s participant. Dig this description:

Later, he insists that I take off in front of him. It’s a small wave, not much wall, and I’m not sure what we’re doing riding it together. He yells, “Come back!” He’s gesturing at me to ride toward him, which I do, though it makes no sense. He keeps gesturing. Now we’re on a collision course. “More!” He cuts back to give me more room. I keep heading toward him, against my better judgment. Our boards are now inches apart. The wave is a dribbler. “O.K.!” he yells, steering away and pointing at the wave beyond me. I turn and see that this small, weak wave has hit a shallow shelf of coral, far closer to shore than people normally surf at Chun’s. The wave stands up, chest high, turns smooth as pearl, and I find myself flying through a lovely section, the sun infusing the lip with a gray-green glow. Jock, now far behind, is giving me a thumbs-up.

“The Long Ride” is a wonderful piece of writing. I enjoyed it immensely.