John John Florence is a man of the sea. Surfing, yes, but also swimming, foiling, paddling, and most definitely sailing. ““Sailing in general for me has opened my mind up to a whole different world,” he said in the project VELA, which documented his expedition to the Palmyra Atoll in the Line Islands after getting injured a few years ago. “I’m super thankful to have met so many awesome people in the sailing world,” says Florence. “When I go on these big race boats, I’m a beginner, and I’m trying to learn everything and I’m so excited, and I can come back to surfing and look at it with a totally different mindset. With a different framework.”
But as is the case with surfing, things don’t always go smoothly, no matter how competent you are. When you’re trying new things — or even old things — a situation can go pear-shaped quickly. Which was exactly what happened a few years back when John and Travis Rice set sail around the east side of Oahu. They were racing Jamie O’Brien in John’s Hobie 16, and since it was John John Florence and Jamie O’Brien, they couldn’t help themselves when the opportunity arose to go surfing in their boats. “We started surfing a few waves and took the wrong line on this one,” Florence wrote about the video above. “We pitch-poled pretty hard, snapping the mast in half and stranding ourselves in the bay.”
