Summa Longbottom is a throwback. During a recent trip to the Mentawais, Summa reflected on her competition days and described the transition to a big-wave career, highlighted by trips to Tahiti and missions to assorted Australian “slabs and bombies.” Listening to those reflections, I realised that her mentality hews closer to that of romanticised lords of the 1990s and early aughts than to most of the current generation of professional surfers. Summa is hardcore. Towing at Shipsterns, her weighted board hit her in the face. She may have fractured her cheek, but she didn’t go to a doctor to find out. Her session cut short; she was mostly “Spewing that she didn’t have a good crack” that day. A reluctant sunscreen user, Summa wears sunburns like a fighter with cauliflower ear – a worn trophy.

Over 12 days sharing a boat, I witnessed the ease of the dynamic, and strength of the connection between Summa and her father, Dylan Longbottom. Summa was quick to cite a source for her style and mindset:  “I’m my father’s daughter.” As a new girl dad myself, Dylan’s success in balancing his career as a surfer and shaper while cultivating Summa’s love for surfing, drew my interest.

Spending time with Dylan, I found him affable, adaptable, and discretely ubiquitous. As an example of the latter, Dylan shows up on one glorious wave near the end of ‘Second Thoughts’ – a masochistic surf video from 2004 that follows Timmy Turner, Travis Potter, and Brett Schwartz as they camp out at the end of the Earth and wait for waves. They battle dysentery. They slaughter a goat for meat. They surf in wetsuits and helmets over dry, tropical reef, knowing that any injury so far from civilisation could be fatal.