SURFING WORLD LAUNCHES ITS LATEST ISSUE FEATURING JUSTINE DUPONT ON THE COVER

When it comes to surfing magazines and surf content journalists you don’t have to dig very far to find the name Sean Doherty.

Sean has been at the top of the writing pool for a long time and he is responsible for books like Golden Daze: The Best Years of Australian Surfing, MP: The Life of Michael Peterson, My Brothers Keeper: The Official Bra Boys Story, The Big Sea and Parko: Joel Parkinson’s Surfing Journey.

And with such an amazing depth of surfing knowledge when Sean pens his thoughts, you know it’s worth reading.

So that lead-in takes us to Sean’s latest venture (for those of you that don’t know Sean recently purchased Surfing World Magazine), in the latest addition of Surfing World, Sean has decided to run (what in our opinion is) the strongest women’s surfing shot possibly of all time. Justine Dupont charging one of the biggest barrels ever ridden by a female surfer out at giant Peahi.

In the current world of wave pools clips and publicised boat trips allowing for female surfing to progress more and more, sometimes the women’s big wave movement gets overlooked when we use words like “ground breaking” or “next-level” so we are so proud to see Justine charging on the cover of a predominant mens surfing magazine… Big congratulations to both Justine, Sean and Surfing World.

Now we need to let you know that the shot of Justine helps lead the reader into the new film coming out “Girls Can’t Surf”, and we plan to cover this very soon however we felt that this image and Surfing World running it as its cover deserved its own article.

We thought we would try and distract Sean from his crazy schedule and ask him a few question in regards to women’s surfing:

Hi Sean, firstly congratulations on purchasing Surfing World Magazine. What inspired you to do this?

Thanks Tru. I think first up we really wanted to make sure that Surfing World lived on. For Jon and I the magazine has been a huge part of our lives, from reading it as grommets to working for the magazine for a long time now. It’s been an important part of surfing in Australia for a long time and we couldn’t let it just fade away. But we also felt it had a future. Not everyone reads surf mags these days, but there are really interesting people and important stories out there in the surf, and Surfing World has always done that really well.

Surfing World has mostly been recognised as a male based magazine in the past, was it a big call for you to run with the photo of Justine on the cover?

You’re right, surf mags generally have all been dominated by men in the past, but that’s changed in recent time. When that photo of Justine turned up we were just blown away. It wouldn’t have mattered if it was a guy or a girl, it was one of the most incredible shots we’d ever seen… and it just happened to be a woman. It was actually the easiest cover decision we’ve ever had to make. 

How do you see the future of women’s surfing fitting in the magazine is there a place for more female content in Surfing World?

Absolutely. I surf pretty much every day, and in the water I see more and more women out there, and as a whole they’re really engaged in surf culture. They’re in deep with surfing and Surfing World needs to reflect that. We need to do more, for sure, and we’re always looking out for female surfers, writers and photographers to get involved with SW. 

So as far as we are concerned “back those who back us”, go out and get a copy of this article, who knows one day it might be as collectable as an original spider man comic?

Buy the Magazine Online Here: https://surfingworld.com.au/product/issue413/