Fifteen-year-old “All-Day” Dylan Wilcoxen has no problem living up to his name. But can he live up to his luck?
The son of California native and Kandui Resort co-owner Ray Wilcoxen, Dylan was born in Indonesia and resides permanently at one of the premiere surf camps in the Mentawais. He is homeschooled, has access to a fleet of boats and the parental permission, nay mandate (I mean, dad and siblings shred too), to use the entirety of each day to score as hard as he can.
“Yeah. I’m pretty lucky,” he says, in an all-time understatement.
Understated is an apt one-word description of both Dylan’s personage and his performance in the Mentawais’ waves of consequence. He is polite and avoids speaking in hyperbole, particularly when asked about his well-documented assaults at Rifles, Kandui and other mainstay spots. He leaves that to the comments he gets from his 16,500 “followers” on Instagram:
“Kid is amazing” – Josh Kerr
“Guy’s on fire!” – Barton Lynch
“Legend.” – Koa Smith
“Ripping!” – Mason Ho
Koa Smith cites Dylan as his favorite follow on Insta.
Other accolades abound. Dylan’s edits have won the BL Blast-Off GoPro Video Challenge for his age division the last three years running (2021, 2022 and 2023). In 2022, he won the Overall 14s as a 13-year-old.
Ok, you ask, but what is the story here? You get it; he’s a good kid who’s good at surfing and is uber-blessed. But stories are about objectives, and obstacles. So what are Dylan’s?
“I want to do well in the World Surf League,” Dylan says. “That’s my goal right now.”
It’s understandable. At the end of each long day in the water, even after sometimes dozens of deep barrels, this question must enter Dylan’s mind: “What now?”
“He gets bored, sometimes,” says Dylan’s dad, Ray. “The comps are a way of mixing it up, getting off-island, trying something new. And he’s serious about being a pro surfer.”
If you have seen Dylan’s Instagram, you know that to combat malaise surfing perfect waves all the time in the Ments, he sometimes resorts to switch-stance tube riding, or butt-boarding in the barrel. He’s a better tube rider sitting down than most people are standing up.
That a world-class teenage surfer wants to make the Championship Tour should shock no one. Tennessee Williams wrote, “Honor is the natural goal toward which every considerable talent presses with whip and spur.” And the CT is the pinnacle of validation in our sport, no matter where you’re from.
View this post on Instagram
But here is where the twist comes in, the obstacle is part of the story. Yes, Indo is surfing’s Disneyland. But how many world champions have hailed from the Happiest Place on Earth? Let’s face it, if your dream is Dream Tour domination, you want to be born and live, well, somewhere else. Somewhere with worse waves, way more regional comps, professional coaches and packs of aggro super groms whose Karen soccer moms would gladly run you over in their mini-van to reduce Junior’s competition. You want your home to be more backstreet boxing gym than day spa; dark and rank, crammed, and the stench of the challenger choking the air.
“History has shown us that surfers from places with poor quality waves tend to do well in pro surfing; Brazil and Florida versus Bali and Hawaii,” says Matt Myers of Myers Surf Mentorship, a coach of pro surfers with a client roster including Nat Young, John Mel, Nolan Rapoza, Levi Slawson and Alyssa Spencer. Myers worked with Rio Waida, the first-ever Indonesian to quality for the CT, when he was on the Challenger Series. “For someone in Indonesia to make it, they have to fully buy in. To accept that they will be away from home, miss quality waves, have to work very hard and grind in bad conditions.”
“We don’t have beachbreaks down here,” says Dylan’s dad, with his trademark chuckle. “We purposefully go looking for bad waves so Dylan can practice. We do it a lot, actually. But sometimes they’re hard to find.” Understatement runs in the family, apparently.
“I will go looking for air wind, sometimes,” Dylan says. “Last couple seasons we have had more than usual onshore days, so…good and bad for me.”
Dylan won the Rip Curl Grom Search Indonesia in 2023, but his Qualifying Series results have been mixed. As they almost always are for rookies. Presenting another obstacle related to the Mentawais. There are few more mellowing places in the world. When there, you feel satiated, not insatiable. To rule on the WSL, one must be motivated on the level of a starved animal.
“Dylan has some of that,” Ray says. “We’ll see if he has enough of that drive.”
“Rio Waida was able to break through being from Indonesia because he had the desire and was willing to do everything it took to reach his goal,” says Myers. “He went above and beyond in discipline, training, preparation, everything.”
“Dylan can do it,” says Margi, an Indonesian surf guide who used to work at Kandui Resort and took Dylan out for some of his first-ever waves as a brand-new grom. “He screamed and cried at first in the water, and called for his dad, but now look at him. Never give up, Dylan. Great things take time.”
Time he has. And support, from sponsors like Rip Curl, …Lost and DaKine. The final line on his athlete profile on the Rip Curl website says, “His story is still being written.”
