Matt Meola’s ‘Spindle Flip 540’ has sent the surf world into a spin. Progressive surfing had thought to have reached a plateau after Kelly Slater’s 540 in Portugal last year. However, now a 25 year-old natural footer from Maui has set the bar even higher in his latest edit titled Home (scroll to 5.55). Matt’s been pushing the limits when it comes to aerials for quite some time. His inverted punts earned him a cool $100k in Taylor Steele’s Innersection in 2011 and since then he’s coined the ‘Spindle air’ – a variation of the backflip. The cross-shore wind certainly helps carry momentum through these maneuvers but stop for a moment and consider how thick the section is he’s smacked, factor in the shallow reef and knee buckling nature of these attempts and you’ll realise why its next level. This 25 year-old from Maui is leading the freesurfing vanguard safely into the future.

Film/Edit: Elliot Leboe, Jon Spenser, Dan Norkunas, Elliot Leboe