Having recently welcomed Pat and Dane to join Tanner in the RAEN family, we wanted to dig in and share their story. We spent a day with the trio to talk about their earliest memories together, their path through to the other side of competitive surfing, and what this next chapter looks like for each of them.
Pat: Our dad was in the industry as a sales rep for 30+ years and worked really hard Monday through Friday, so Saturday and Sunday were really times for us all to go to the beach as a family. It was where we all came together and spent time in the water and just enjoyed that. Now that I am a dad, I can look back on that and remember how special that was for us then and to be able to really enjoy that now.
Pat: The ceiling was so high for competition and that brought us all closer together. We didn’t have coaches or filmers or anything that a lot of the kids have these days. So it was us figuring it out together and learning from each other. Like, how do you make a heat? How do you travel? It all brought us closer together into that passionate fold of learning.
So, when I had the opportunity, I got a fresh start and went on the road with Reef McIntosh, Danny Fuller, and Nathan Fletcher and we got some amazing waves. I fell in love with tube riding and being around people who saw surfing in a creative way that wasn’t adhered to anything else and I haven’t looked back since. I’ve found that if you open yourself up to spending time with elders or people who see surfing in a whole new way, it just broadens your perspective of it.
With the whole creative side of things, I remember I would lose heats and feel so robotic and needed to get something creative out to feel unique. So that’s when I started taking photos and collaging on the road when I was on the QS and would just stack up books of that stuff. After I stopped competing, I didn’t do it that much until recently when I really started to miss the painting, cutting, gluing, spray-painting part of it all. So, I picked that back up and it’s been so enjoyable. And like Dane said, surfing is an art form, so I love to intermingle all of that.
It was a shock when Dane decided not to compete anymore because it was always me and him doing everything as a team. And that was the first time in our lives where one of us broke off and said, ‘I’m not going to do what everyone else is doing.’ But these boys really inspired me in the movement they took away from competing and seeing their personal growth outside of the jersey was really cool for me. They inspired me to take the challenge and growth aspects of competition and channel them into creative passions like PVW, or raising a family, or making films... it just all changed for me after seeing them do it. That passion and energy is still there, it’s just for different things now.
It’s really unique that all three of us have found passion in the same space and have all excelled in that space too. But ultimately, it’s cool to be able to find your own voice within that and we’re really grateful for the opportunity to do that.
Tanner: I feel like globally, growth for surfing is inevitable and it's to be welcomed. From an inspiration perspective, there's going be so much more diversity to dip into and all those cultures are going have their own stoke and that's going to look different everywhere.
Images by Zak Bush and Jack Antal