Ari Browne Fights Friction The Finless Way

I’ve been lucky enough to spend a lot of time surfing alongside great surfers and there are plenty of sessions I’ve seen that could easily rate as the best I’ve ever seen. Strangely though, the surfing that is stoking me out most right now is being done by this skinny kid from Byron Bay named Ari Brown. He’s totally zany! And he’s having more fun than anyone… guaranteed.

I first heard of Ari through his brother Raff, a school teacher mate of mine who I surfed with while I was living in Byron years ago. Raff and Ari had been Rudolph Steiner kids. The Steiner Schools are famous for left of centre curriculum and open minded teaching methods. Their emphasis is on creativity and they kind of let kids roam and be feral before they funnel down into something they like which is then encouraged. Raff and Ari were products of that environment and though I never got to surf with Ari back then there were already a few rumours getting around that he was a bit of a freak.

When I moved away from Byron I began to notice Ari popping up in different web clips and in photos here and there. This is mostly through the Vouch surfboard label that was created by Evan Squirrell. Vouch had a great vibe. Paul Hutchison was shaping all these hulls, single fins, 80s thrusters and the whole aesthetic of the company was out there and poppy. They had a Vouch surfing convertible they’d cruise around in with their 80s boards and stuff like that which was hilarious. Ari was a part of all that and I remember thinking, “These guys are killing it!”

It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I got a firsthand glance at just how freaky Ari’s surfing was. I paddled out at The Pass one arvo and the bank was absolutely perfect. The swell was only two foot but it was rifling little barrels as far as you could see. All the fin-free guys were sliding around out there. Derek Hynd, Ryan Heywood, Harry Henderson, but the only guy getting proper barrels was Ari. And he wasn’t just pulling in… he was doing the craziest frontside laybacks you could ever imagine. I’d seen Knost do ’em a few times but Ari had the most unbelievable extension. He was basically limboing into barrels!

This was around the time he was first getting on the Ryan Lovelace Rabbit’s Foot boards. I’d seen the early stuff of Dan Malloy on the Rabbit’s Foot and Trevor Gordon and stuff but I’d never seen anything like this. This was completely next level.

“I couldn’t get my head around how bent back he was, how he was holding rail, how he was fighting the gravity, it blew my mind. My knees want to blow out just thinking about it.”

The best wave I saw him get was this grinder coming down the point. Ari took off, did this really low Greenough-esque bottom turn, came flying across a crazy double up section and contorted his body into this gravity defying frontside layback right through the thickest little drainer of the afternoon. I was paddling over the shoulder screaming ,“WHAT!” I couldn’t get my head around how bent back he was, how he was holding rail, how he was fighting the gravity, it blew my mind. My knees want to blow out just thinking about it.

I’ve surfed Broken with Ari and Lennox as well and he’s always shredding. And it’s not just on finless. Give him a board with fins and he’s snappy and fresh. He doesn’t care about linking up to get photos or anything attached to surfing other than just doing it, he’s just there killing sessions before he bails away to uni to study fine art.

I guess that’s one of the great things about his surfing. He doesn’t care about comments or bangers or hangers or whatever people call ’em these days. He’s smart about his life, he’s going to New York to live and study for six months and it’s refreshing to see someone being original in their relationship with surfing particularly, in a time when everyone’s working so hard to be relevant or be different or be acknowledged.

I don’t know if he’s copped any flack for surfing finless at The Pass. There’s a lot of aggression in surfing I don’t really understand. Finless guys get kinda looked down on or generalised as hipsters or whatever but man, it’s just a fun alternative to longboarding on those small right hand points. And you watch the finless guys out the Pass… they’re so in control of their equipment, you never see Derek or Harry, Heywood or Ari fall off. I just think they’re having fun doing their own thing which sums Ari up perfectly. He’s a great guy to watch and he’s not relying on anyone to support him. He’s a mad underdog.