Article by: Zander Morton
October 1st, 2024
Surfer Magazine
In the parking lot at The Surf Station, Saint Augustine, Florida’s OG surf shop, 20-year-old Ryan Huckabee chats with former Championship Tour competitor Gabe Kling while the swelling crowd of groms patiently await the premiere of Huckabee’s first major edit, aptly named, “Huck”. It’s a play on his last name, for sure, but it’s also fitting considering Huckabee is quickly garnering a reputation for throwing himself over the ledge on scary waves and hucking himself in the air off big sections.
At 6’4″, 20-year-old Huckabee towers over his peers. Growing up just down the road in Flagler Beach, Florida, you’d think his stature would serve as a disadvantage in Florida slop.
Apparently not.
As soon as it get dark, The Station’s shop manager fires up the projector, and Huckabee’s edit quickly fires up the crowd. The 8-minute edit is a collection of A+ bangers from Australia, Indonesia, Portugal, and California. It’s a wildly impressive edit. The fact is that Huckabee is bigger, stronger and throws more spray than anyone else his age, and it’s not even close.
After the edit ends and the fired up crowd filters out, I pull Huckabee aside for a quick chat about his edit, his first year on the Challenger Series, surfing big waves, and his goal to be the first male surfer from Florida to qualify for the Championship Tour since Gabe Kling.
SURFER: How old are you?
Ryan Huckabee: I’m 20.
This is your first year on the Challenger Series. Is it what you expected?
It’s been amazing. Results wise, it hasn’t been the best year for me, but getting to travel and compete internationally, which I’ve never really done, has been great. And the best part is that it’s provided me with an opportunity to film before and after the events, while in Australia, South Africa, and Indonesia, and this edit is a culmination of all of that.
Was it tough filming for this edit while simultaneously competing on the CS?
Well, I didn’t really put any expectations on myself this year, at least not competitively. I just wanted to enjoy competing at that level and learn from the guys that have been doing it for 10 plus years. They’re incredible competitors, and I’ve learned a lot surfing against them, and just watching them compete. So that took the pressure off. My main thing was, when I learned I qualified for the Challenger, I wanted to spend a bunch of time surfing and filming in Australia, and then spend the month between Australia and South Africa chasing waves in Indo. So this edit was really the main focus for this year anyway.
The Indo section is insane. Give us the highlights and lowlights of your month over there.
Honestly, it was the coolest 5 weeks of my life. I’d never been to Indo, and just to wake up every morning and have the waves be perfect again is something I’ve never experienced. So that was really cool. It was a huge mission, though. I spent three and half weeks at Lakey Peak, and my visa was about to expire. We tried to get a flight back to Bali in time to extend, and there were no flights. For a few days everything was totally booked. So, we had to taxi/ferry 21 hours to Bali, and inadvertently got caught up in a taxi turf war, so that was pretty interesting [laughs]. But the cool thing is, I got so see all of Sumbawa, and all of Lombok. At the time it was pretty stressful because I also had to extend my visa and catch a flight to Nias, but looking back now it made for a memorable experience.
