There’s something to be said for prioritizing fun. Not to paint with broad strokes here, but it seems like the surf world at large has only recently come to grips with not needing to ride a high-performance shortboard in everything from thumping tubes to knee high slop. No, the fun lies in experimentation. Tapping into different sensations that are possible by mixing up equipment – from boards to fin setups. And no surfer that we’ve seen recently seems to embody that spirit more than Dan Johnson.
In a recent profile for O’Neill Australia’s O’Riginals series, which features lesser knowns in surf going their own way, Johnson exemplifies his prowess on finless craft to logs to alaias. To be frank, we can’t say we’ve ever seen anyone pull into a closeout belly boarding on a finless like an airplane wing. Skip ahead to 3:30 for that.
