Is Tom Curren the most exquisite, the most supremely stylish being ever to ride a surfboard? The surfer most likely to induce in the discerning surf fan a state of aesthetic bliss, and/or a semi?

Probably, yes. He’d top most people’s lists, anyway, and he’s surely not far from the top of many “best ever” lists either. The mildest way of putting it would be this: Curren could surf better than anyone who could surf more stylishly, and more stylishly than anyone who could surf better.

And here’s another question to which the answer is probably yes: is Curren plus pink fluoro wetsuit plus J-Bay the best combo in surfing history?

Bruce Irons

“When young Bruce bewitched the surfing masses in the late ‘90s, he was possessed of a wiry and virile magnetism almost impossible to resist. The chiselled features and sunken eyes of a fallen angel helped…”

When young Bruce bewitched the surfing masses in the late ‘90s, he was possessed of a wiry and virile magnetism almost impossible to resist. The chiselled features and sunken eyes of a fallen angel helped; so did the casual swagger and abundant natural ability. Other qualities included an easy, limp-wristed fluidity and a first-rate hair-flick.

At his peak, he only had to get to his feet on a wave and he made it look like the coolest thing in the world. His section in Volcom’s Magna Plasm is a case in point. He sits on a wall, dangling his feet; he fries an egg; he inspects a surfboard. And then there is a right-hand barrel peeling across the screen, and the guitar solo commences, and Bruce makes his exit/entrance in time with the spit, flicking his hair insolently — and it’s sheer perfection.

Rob Machado

Machado’s is a low-fat, easily spreadable brand of butter, possibly even margarine, in which there’s a decent chance of finding a frizzy sun-bleached hair that when stretched out to its full length could encircle the Earth.

“His simian silhouette — the spindly arms dangling down to his ankles, the thick mane and the waterlogged goatee — is one of the most instantly recognisable sights in contemporary shredding”

If you look can look past his recent flirtations with dreadlocks, and the tedious Drifter musings, and the fact he once mercilessly snaked the Surf Europe editor, who’s pursued a vendetta against him ever since — the man looks beautiful on a surfboard. His simian silhouette — the spindly arms dangling down to his ankles, the thick mane and the waterlogged goatee — is one of the most instantly recognisable sights in contemporary shredding.

Stephanie Gilmore

To watch Stephanie Gilmore in full flow is one of life’s chief pleasures. To study her movements as she ascends and descends the head-high face of a long right-hander; a top turn here, a tunnel there, a soul arch for good measure, an occasional flick of the hair; her face a picture of joy, her rear knee a thing of exquisite delicacy — it could warm the cockles of the coldest heart.

It’s not exactly her womanhood that does it, although neither is her womanhood entirely beside the point. I don’t mean in an erotic way — although yes, in an erotic way, too, the enjoyment of style being a fundamentally erotic experience, after all. No: it’s more that Gilmore routinely hits notes well outside the range of her male counterparts.

Dave Rastovich

“There was once a man who became unstuck in the world, and each person he met became a little less stuck themselves,” intones Dave Rastovich at the start of his otherwise flawless section in Castles in the Sky. “He travelled only with himself, and he was never alone.”

Hmmm. Sounds like a bit of a helmet actually, this man. Anyhow — Rasta, he’s a stylish so-and-so isn’t he? He may have an unfortunate penchant for soliloquising, but he does some fine work for the whales and the dolphin folk, and possesses a mean cutback, so will almost certainly go to heaven/be reincarnated as something good. His surfing is notable for its atavistic caveman oomph, a distinctive and visually pleasing up-and-down pumping style, and an aversion to the industry standard tri-fin sled.