Watch: 20-Year-Old Ryan Huckabee Is the Next Big Name in East Coast Surfing

In the parking lot at The Surf Station , Saint Augustine, Florida's OG surf shop, 20-year-old Ryan Huckabee chats with former Championship Tour competitor Gabe Kling while the swelling crowd of groms patiently await the premiere of Huckabee's first major edit, aptly named, "Huck". It's a play on his last name, for sure, but it's also fitting considering Huckabee is quickly garnering a reputation for throwing himself over the ledge on scary waves and hucking himself in the air off big sections.

At 6'4", 20-year-old Huckabee towers over his peers. Growing up just down the road in Flagler Beach, Florida, you'd think his stature would serve as a disadvantage in Florida slop.

Apparently not.

As soon as it get dark, The Station's shop manager fires up the projector, and  Huckabee's edit quickly fires up the crowd. The 8-minute edit is a collection of A+ bangers from Australia, Indonesia, Portugal, and California. It's a wildly impressive edit. The fact is that Huckabee is bigger, stronger and throws more spray than anyone else his age, and it's not even close.

After the edit ends and the fired up crowd filters out, I pull Huckabee aside for a quick chat about his edit, his first year on the Challenger Series, surfing big waves, and his goal to be the first male surfer from Florida to qualify for the Championship Tour since Gabe Kling.

How old are you?
I’m 20.

This is your first year on the Challenger Series. Is it what you expected?
It’s been amazing. Results wise, it hasn’t been the best year for me, but getting to travel and compete internationally, which I’ve never really done, has been great. And the best part is that it's provided me with an opportunity to film before and after the events, while in Australia, South Africa, and Indonesia, and this edit is a culmination of all of that.

Was it tough filming for this edit while simultaneously competing on the CS?
Well, I didn’t really put any expectations on myself this year, at least not competitively. I just wanted to enjoy competing at that level and learn from the guys that have been doing it for 10 plus years. They’re incredible competitors, and I’ve learned a lot surfing against them, and just watching them compete. So that took the pressure off. My main thing was, when I learned I qualified for the Challenger, I wanted to spend a bunch of time surfing and filming in Australia, and then spend the month between Australia and South Africa chasing waves in Indo. So this edit was really the main focus for this year anyway.

The Indo section is insane. Give us the highlights and lowlights of your month over there.
Honestly, it was the coolest 5 weeks of my life. I’d never been to Indo, and just to wake up every morning and have the waves be perfect again is something I’ve never experienced. So that was really cool. It was a huge mission, though. I spent 3 and half weeks at Lakey Peak, and my visa was about to expire. We tried to get a flight back to Bali in time to extend, and there were no flights. For a few days everything was totally booked. So, we had to taxi/ferry 21 hours to Bali, and inadvertently got caught up in a taxi turf war, so that was pretty interesting [laughs]. But the cool thing is, I got so see all of Sumbawa, and all of Lombok. At the time it was pretty stressful because I also had to extend my visa and catch a flight to Nias, but looking back now it made for a memorable experience.

How did you end up touring "Huck" with Kolohe Andino? That’s a pretty rad way to introduce your first major edit.
Originally, when I went to Indo this summer, my plan was to film for his movie, Hijinks, but also for my own edit. But, when I proposed that to him after the trip, he said it made more sense to go with one or the other, just so all my best clips were in one project. I decided to keep all my Indo clips for my own edit, but he still provided me the opportunity to open the night for him on the Florida leg of his tour, and I’m really grateful for that.

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Talent recognizes talent, and it’s rad to see Kolohe supporting the east coasters, too.
It’s amazing what he’s doing for the youth of surfing as a whole. He’s providing opportunities for surfers that otherwise might not have a big platform, and then putting on premiere tours through Japan, Australia, and the US. For him to include me was amazing.

Not taking anything away from Kolohe or Hijinks, but I will say, I heard from a couple of groms that went to the Jacksonville premiere, and they said “Huck” stole the show.
Well I appreciate that, but Hijinks was really sick, too.

You already have a reputation for charging in bigger surf. I saw that firsthand last year in Portugal when you paddled out to The Cave last year, alone, right after Brodi Sale got hurt. Where does that confidence come from?
[Laughs.] I don’t think that I have that confidence. I want that confidence. I want to keep pushing myself, and one of my major goals for this winter is to go surf some really heavy waves. I’m actually so scared of big waves, but the fulfillment of making a big wave is so worth it. Like at The Cave last year. And actually the end of the edit is from out there, on a day when it was just Torrey Meister and I. It was the scariest session of my life, but making a couple of slabs out there just made me want it even more.

It’s rad to hear your humility.
Oh, I’m not scared to admit I'm terrified [laughs]. But my favorite guys in the surf world are Nathan Florence and Russell Bierke. What they did last year was incredible. I want to be able to push myself over the ledge on those big waves. I’m nowhere near comfortable enough yet, but I wanna get there. The more sessions I can have in those types of waves, the more comfortable I’ll become.

Before I let you go, talk a little bit about your hometown, Flagler Beach. It’s not a place many people know much about outside of Florida.
We have a really good surf community here, and there are actually a lot of great surfers from such a small town. Robbie McCormick is the best guy to come out of here in a long time, but there’s also Robbie Goodwin, Jimmy Blumenfeld, Ben Lacy, and honestly a bunch of others. It was rad to see Robbie [McCormick] win STAB High last year, but Robbie [Goodwin] is the guy that really pushed me to push myself in big waves. And of course there’s 4 time world champion Frieda Zamba.

The last male surfer to qualify for the CT from Florida was Gabe Kling back in 2011. That’s 13 long years. Is it your goal to be the next?
Absolutely. That’s my main goal in surfing. This year I focused a lot on filming, but within the next couple of years I wanna make a real push to qualify. Being on the Challenger with that level of surfers has really improved my surfing this year, even if the results haven’t shown it yet [laughs].

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