No groms were hurt in the making of this film 🙂

Surf News Network:  Injecting science into surfing is nothing new. Science exists in several elements of surfing, including wave mechanics, swell models, weather patterns, athlete performance, and a long list of other areas.

The goal of the Red Bull Surf Science project is not to revolutionize the way we approach surfing, or even try to elevate it to the next level. Instead, the objective is to further advance the technology that is being developed, and test it in the harshest conditions possible. If we can get this technology to work and produce credible results, we’ll be able to take key learnings and hopefully improve athlete performance, not only in the water but with other sports as well.

Brandon Larson, from the Red Bull High Performance team, breaks down the purpose of this project like this: “Technology is another tool that you can use in a series of things you do. The tribal knowledge, the experiential knowledge, the gut feelings, the collaboration between surfers and coaches will always come first. But having this data allows you to monitor progress, and correct any necessary changes.”

With that in mind, we boarded a plane to Mexico for a week of science class armed with a full list of technologies, a group of scientists, and the most important element to the project, the test subjects: surfers Jake Marshall, Josh Moniz, and their coaches Chris Stone and Rainos Hayes.

“Before, it would seem silly to apply science to surfing if you didn’t have a coach, if you didn’t train,” explains coach Stone on his expectations for the project. “But now that the playing field is getting more and more level, where do you find that extra improvement?”

We thought we had a strong sense of how things were going to play out once we got to Mexico, but as with most scientific experiments, we learned much more than expected.