Surfing celebrated its biggest night of the year last night with the 49th annual Surfer Awards, held at Turtle Bay Resort on the fabled North Shore of Oahu. The industry’s most prestigious award show celebrated the year’s greatest achievements in surfing and surf filmmaking, with newly-crowned four-time world champion Carissa Moore winning the Women’s Best Surfer award, and 2019 world title hopeful Italo Ferreira claiming the Men’s Best Surfer award. Director Michael Oblowitz received the Movie of the Year award for “Heavy Water”, a documentary about the life of one of surfing’s most venerated big-wave chargers and aerial pioneers, Nathan Fletcher.
This year’s Surfer Awards saw the addition of new categories, allowing for an equal number of performance awards for both men and women for the first time in the show’s history. In addition to Carissa Moore’s Women’s Best Surfer win, big-wave surfer Justine Dupont took top honors in the Women’s Heavy Water category, Courtney Conlogue claimed Women’s Best Maneuver, Vahine Feirro took Women’s Best Barrel and local Hawaiian longboarder Kelia Moniz elegantly earned the Women’s Best Style award.
Nearly all of the night’s big winners were chosen by the Surfer Awards Academy, which consists of surf experts, including stylish ‘70s legend Gerry Lopez, modern aerial maestro Albee Layer, Hawaiian ripper Coco Ho, and many more icons of the surfing world. The one award of the night that was not voted on by the Surfer Awards Academy was the Battle of the Vlogs award, which celebrated surfing’s most beloved YouTube stars and was voted on by the surfing public as part of the Surfer Awards Fan Favorite Poll. Longtime Pipeline standout Jamie O’Brien was able to edge out the rest in the eyes of the fans and take home the inaugural Battle of the Vlogs trophy.
“The Surfer Awards are always evolving to reflect what’s dynamic and exciting about that moment in the surf world, what we all want to be celebrating, but this year was easily the most dramatic shift of the past 20 years,” says SURFER Magazine editor-in-chief Todd Prodanovich. “This year was all about celebrating incredible female surfers, adding new awards to highlight what matters most in surfing right now, and enlisting the largest pool of expert judges the Surfer Awards has ever had to ensure that the most worthy surfers are hoisting those trophies by the night’s end. It will truly go down as a special night for surfing, and a pivotal night in the history of the Surfer Awards.”
Check out the full list of winners by category below, and be sure to check out the full results of the Surfer Awards Fan Favorite Poll on Tuesday, December 10th on Surfer.com:
- Women’s Best Surfer: Carissa Moore
- Men’s Best Surfer: Italo Ferreira
- Movie of the Year: “Heavy Water”
- Best Short: “The Quieter You Are The More You Can Hear.”
- Best Series: “Weird Waves”
- Men’s Best Maneuver: Matt Meola
- Women’s Best Maneuver: Courtney Conlogue
- Men’s Best Barrel: Keito Matsuoka
- Women’s Best Barrel: Vahine Fierro
- Men’s Heavy Water: Russell Bierke
- Women’s Heavy Water: Justine Dupont
- Women’s Best Style: Kelia Moniz
- Men’s Best Style: Torren Martyn
- Agent of Change: Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii
- Men’s A.I. Breakthrough Performer: Barron Mamiya
- Women’s A.I. Breakthrough Performer: Brisa Hennessy
- Battle of the Vlogs Champion: Jamie O’Brien Vlogs
This year, the awards were hosted by big-wave surfing icon and North Shore lifeguard Dave Wassel, as well as longtime contest commentator and colorful media personality Chris Cote. They were joined on stage by the California-based, twin-brother jazz rock duo The Mattson 2, who live-scored the show with music from their critically-acclaimed new album “Paradise”.
Started as a tongue-in-cheek reader survey in 1963—when Californian Phil Edwards, fresh off being the first person to ever surf Pipeline the prior winter, became the first Surfer Poll winner. The next year a women’s category was added, and in the early 1990s, surf filmmaking awards were added to the celebration.
Special thanks to event partners White Claw Hard Seltzer, PAU Maui Vodka, Honolulu GMC, Guayaki Yerba Mate, Turtle Bay Resort and 10 Barrel Brewing Co. for their support, without which the Surfer Awards would not be possible.
For all of the latest information including photos, video footage, results and more, check out surferawards.com.
About SURFER
In 1960, SURFER began as the original surf magazine. With a long history of delivering provocative and insightful editorial features, revealing interviews and award-winning, state-of-the-art photography, SURFER remains the authoritative voice of the surfing world and thus earned the moniker “The Bible of the Sport.” Through its website, social media channels, magazine, and streaming programming, SURFER continues to be the leading source of compelling content in the surf community, reaching more than 22-million active sports enthusiasts. SURFER is published by American Media, Inc. To learn more, visit surfer.com.
