A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Alexandre, João (Dapin)

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Smart, acerbic, often hilarious northern Californian surf writer; created of the short-lived but influential blog PostSurf; 

 magazine senior writer since 2010. Born (1976) and raised in Marin County, to parents who wrote medical self-help books, Samuels began surfing the frigid, temperamental waves around his hometown of Bolinas at age seven. After high school, he transitioned to sunny La Jolla, California where the goofyfooter earned a B.S. in Cognitive Science from UC San Diego (1999) and competed on the university surf team.

While surf-trekking through Indonesia after college, Samuels submitted travelogues to surf magazines and had an article published in Surfline on the aftermath of the 2002 Bali bombings. Surfline continued to use Samuels' work, and in 2007 he convinced the website to run his “Power Rankings” column—a regular feature critically evaluating the ASP pro tour competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, with a paragraph or two devoted to each surfer’s performance, a lá Derek Hynd’s work in 

in the 1980s and early '90s. Samuels’ analysis (continued on PostSurf) was generally spot-on, but it was his caustic, insult-laden remarks, flecked with references to highbrow literary figures, mostly directed at the bottom half of the rankings, that gained him a devoted following. “Surfed like he was in the Special Olympics,” he wrote of one competitor; “he reminds me of Charles Dickens, if Dickens were a Sydney metrosexual comfortable in the company of a young Oscar Wilde."

While readers loved the Power Rankings, among the pros themselves—accustomed to fawning coverage from the surf press—Samuels quickly became, as one magazine noted, "the most hated man in surfing." Aussie regularfooter Luke Stedman told an interviewer in 2009 that he "honestly wanted to kill" Samuels. “He drove a sharp stake into me several times and it fucking hurt.” Samuels also regularly thumbed his nose toward the surf industry in his blog PostSurf, started in 2009, and as a result was fired by Surfline shortly after the blog went online. His role as a bomb-thrower, however, was a welcome change for anyone bored of the scrubbed-clean advertorial content found in most ad-supported surf media.

Samuels shut down the labor-intensive, revenue-free PostSurf after less than a year. His stock at that point was high enough that he jumped straight to a Senior Writer masthead position with 

His work for the magazine—feature articles, profiles, and a popular column called "Borrowed Boards," in which Samuels traveled the world without surfboards and only rode what he could borrow—while still funny and sharp-edged, has been less bombastic.

Samuels, Lewis

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

Interviews

Features

The Sunday Joint