Matt Chojnacki's Unique Hawaiian Approach

‘The Waxhead’ rides an eclectic quiver in a purple patch of Hawaiian swell.

When it comes to surfboards, Matt Chojnacki, aka ‘The Waxhead,’ has eclectic tastes.

He’s like the food connoisseur who prefers degustation menus. He wants the eleven-course meal with a variety of dazzling flavours. Matt’s approach in Hawaii is no different. He arrived on the North Shore in late December with two boards to add to his pre-existing Hawaiian stash. Three and a half weeks later, he’d ridden over twenty different types of craft, swapping, borrowing, and buying his way through single-fin remakes, original classics, and contemporary quads – Brewers, Bushmans, Chapmans, and more. He even had a self-shaped thruster for Pipe.      

When he arrived in Hawaii on the 19th December, Matt dropped straight into a Waimea swell. A few days later he was paddling out on the morning of The Eddie Aikau event on a Roger Erikson inspired single fin, sneaking in a few waves before the contest started.

Below, Matt talks about picking lines at Waimea, surfing Sunset with John John, and why he embraces the challenge of riding different craft.

So, you surfed Waimea on the morning of The Eddie event?

It was the three days leading up to it and the day of the event. Then there was another spike a couple of days later. But yeah, pretty much as soon as I arrived, it was just Waimea for the next three or four days.

It looked like your board of choice was a single fin. Talk to us about riding a single fin at Waimea—what sensation are you chasing, and what are its advantages or disadvantages?

The earliest visions I have of Waimea Bay come from Bruce Brown films—watching guys like Greg Noll and Mike Doyle take super steep, deep drops, angling from behind the section. I hadn’t really seen photos or videos of that approach much since, except maybe John John at The Eddie a few years ago and Luke Shepardson. Over the last 40 years, with the introduction of rocker and multiple fins, people started taking off and going straight. Add a crowd to the mix, and that line became less common. But in my mind, it always made sense to take off really far out and deep, trying to find your own chip shot in. Single fins worked well for guys in the '60s and '70s, so that approach wasn’t unfamiliar to me, even though I hadn’t drawn that line myself before. Riding a single fin out there just feels embryonic—connected to the history and lineage of Hawaiian surfing. The board I rode actually belonged to Emily Erickson. It was shaped by Lyle Carlson, who apprenticed under Dick Brewer. The design was based on one of Emily’s dad's 'Roger Erickson’s Waimea' boards from the '70s—a Brewer, with the same curves, exact template, and dimensions: 10’6” by three and three quarters. As soon as I got on it, it felt like an old friend. It rode like a Cadillac out there.

Then, on a windy day just after The Eddie in early January, there was another swell. That time, I rode a Bushman quad fin—one of Ross Clarke-Jones’s backup boards for The Eddie. Jeff Bushman let me take it out, and that thing was insane in the chop.

While you’re inspired by the classic footage, photos, and pioneers, you're not a slave to that image. You're happy to say, "Well, I can enjoy that, but I can also jump on a contemporary quad as well."

Absolutely. And I think there's actually a synergy between what I said before with the quads, the way that the new gen is surfing Waimea, and the way that they used to surf it, because they had no choice but to take off sideways when they first started surfing the wave in the 60s. But these days, they take off so deep that you've got to take off sideways too, you know, really steep and even knife it. So, if you actually put modern footage – perhaps not Landon McNamara’s Airdrop wave, but if you put regular footers’ footage from these days up against Waimea from the 60s, they're drawing very similar lines. But no one goes switch foot now. In the 60s everyone – all the goofy footers – seemed to play with switch foot. Butch Van Arsdale and Jock Sutherland and Jose Angel, they would surf switch foot out at The Bay because it just made sense to them to go front side. So, no, it’s not specifically a retro affair for me. I feel like there’s still room to explore with that classic equipment because the surfers who wrote the book on how to surf waves like Sunset, Pipe, and Waimea did so beautifully in that era—before the conventional shortboards. There’s still a lot of inspiration to draw from that time.

I guess there's a bit of a buzz in knowing there's 40 guys in the lineup feeling the kind of thruster/modern quad experience. Maybe on a single fin there's something else subtly different to feel?

You're doing four- or five-hour sessions sometimes, and you're getting a couple bombs, but you're also party waving on 15 footers, with five guys sometimes, and when you're on the latest and greatest equipment, with everyone with their padding, the aura and the risk kind of feels deflated. Excuse the puns, but I'm out there most of the time without padding, not for any other reason, other than just I feel like, compared to where I surf, at home, at Waimea, it's breaking in one spot, and it doesn't seem like there’s as much risk of getting caught inside by a looming outside reef. It is not as common as when I surf the bombies back here in Australia. So yeah, paddling out in board shorts kind of just feels pure… especially on the single fin too.

On Eddie day, I did wear an inflation vests, just in case. It's kind of scary when you know the swell’s got a 22-second period, and it's meant to be 40ft any minute. You think, "Okay, I better be ready," because when it starts closing out, no one's coming to get you—at least for a couple of minutes.

Did you have any heavy scenarios at Waimea?

No, not particularly. I escaped. Well. I just planned everything really well and was really happy. Sunset, just after The Eddie, was actually really heavy – during the Backdoor shootout. There was a growing swell, and yeah, my leash snapped so that meant 45 minutes of water time on a 22nd period swell at 15-foot Sunset. As Tom Carroll once told me when I was 21, ‘Hawaii is great when everything's going smoothly—until it's not. Then, it'll remind you who's boss.’ I've had that in the back of my head for 15 years, and it definitely served itself up to me at Sunset… You know, there's people around, but in a big playing field, you have to deal with it yourself first, and you got to make sure that you can actually get under these big monsters. Because, you know, as soon as you swallow a little bit of water and you panic, it's all over…

There is that post featured on your Instagram where you pull up at Sunset and John John paddles out, and you can kind of see that you're awed by the opportunity to see him surf a wave like that in the flesh?

That’s exactly right. So that was a day during the Backdoor shootout. He didn't surf, but obviously Sunset was as good as it gets, with a growing swell, I knew it was. The morning shift had just come in. It was 6 to ten feet in the morning, and everyone had just come in as there was some 12-footers approaching, but that day was wild. It was perfect for John. It was perfect eight to 12 feet, breaking absolutely flawlessly, swamped with 15 foot plus sets. But he just had a knack for positioning himself absolutely perfectly on a tiny board. Yeah. He got so many waves that day, too. In contrast, I was riding a 9’9” and I felt like I needed every bit of it for the ones that I was riding or chasing. And he was Johnny on the spot, as he always is… He was on a 6’3”, sitting deep and underneath. The period was so long, he was actually surfing another swell under it. So he was fully having his own session, basically surfing the secondary swell.

And did you surf Pipe?

I surfed Pipe five times. I rode a self-shaped 7’7” which I kind of also needed, because it was pretty rogue and roll-ins most of the time. One day I waited three hours, got two sets. Both of them didn't really barrel, and that was on a day after the Backdoor shootout, where there were some really good ones, but there was also a lot that didn't really end up that good – they didn't barrel. You'd be out there thinking everyone's getting barrelled off their brain. And then you'd watch the footage back, and you go, ‘Okay, well, I don't feel so bad now… So it wasn't a waste of time at Pipe. It’s just nice to put in time out there. But interesting to note that I'm 35 and I was the oldest one out there, apart from Jamie O’Brien and the Florence brothers and a few other guys, the rest of the crew were sub - 18. Yeah, it was bizarre. It was a weird feeling.

Were you surfing with anyone in particular?

I was surfing with Sunshine Coast grom, Landon Smales and I sort of took him under my wing, and Californian kid, Cormac Brian; he's a young pro longboarder, but those guys were great. I took Cormac out The Bay, and on his first wave, on a 9’6” Randy Eric, he went switch foot on a 12-footer. A 15-year-old, just doing what he sees in the movies and then Brandon was epic. He doesn't get to surf any big waves, but he took out a nine-foot Padillac and knifed this big, beautiful, triple overhead wave. I'm so proud of them. They put in time at Sunset and Pipe and all the other spots as well. They sort of did Hawaii in the way I wish I did when I was a teenager.

Hawaii is not always 15-foot Sunset and non-stop adrenaline. You can have a lot of fun on the small days, because there’s so much push in the waves.

I didn't post a picture of my full quiver, but I ended up with about, I think, 12 or 13 boards. I had a like, a single fin gun, which I ended up riding as a glider at Chuns, and small Sunset. And that was phenomenal. That board was the full, you know, two to 12 feet board. It was unreal. And there was a little 7’0” single fin, swallow tail that I borrowed off a Californian kid. And that was great. We went up east a little bit and went west and found a couple of waves. And, yeah, everyone thinks of those big bombing days, but in-between those swells – it's where the locals surf, I guess. You know, there's so many waves to be had, but you can't really beat those iconic waves either.

Would you just look at the forecast, or would you wake up and check the surf and then decide where to go?

I was staying with a veteran of the North Shore. He's lived there for close to 30 years. His name is Skipp Wunderlich and his daughter, Natalia, who is one of the best up and coming long borders. And he was a cool source of knowledge. He would check the swell direction, and I’d tell him where I was thinking of riding the next day. I just sort of know the spots now, it's probably the fifth or sixth time I’ve been able to get good waves over there. And he (Skipp) was stoked. He said, ‘Oh, look, the wind's gonna be good. The direction is good. He's like, you're gonna have a ball.’ Just nice, sort of getting consolidated. Randy (Rarick) was very good too. He would send me a picture of Sunset most days and give me swell reports.

There are so many boards around in Hawaii and you love riding different ones. Do you go hunting around for boards over there?

Yes, that's exactly right. So one of my students there, Corey Gray, she's an up and coming big wave surfer. I've been tuning her into the history, and I've got her to have a good little collection of single fins. So, she had Mike Eaton, a nine-foot single fin, perfect for Sunset, a vintage one. And she had Chuck Andres copy it into a more modernized version. So, I was borrowing her vintage one. She was riding her modern remake. But I left a few boards last year at her house. But yeah, between the single fins and modern quad fins, I have a McTavish quad for the outer reefs. Yeah, some of the labels that I was lucky enough to ride were Randy Rarick, Owl Chapman, Mike Eaton, Lyle Carson,Bushman, Chuck Andres. and also, Roger Hinds, who used to shape with Randy doing some of the Bear boards. Roger shaped a ten-six balsa, and he gave that to me to ride one day out at Waimea. That was an absolute trip. That was a really cool experience, actually. And Barrett Miller is a San Diego up and coming shipper, and he had a shed full of single fins that he shaped and leant to Emmy Ericsson and I, which are epic. They were semi-guns, but perfect for Sunset and some of the other spots. So, I had all the bases covered. And Phil Ward is a Gold Coast shaper, and he made me a 1967 Brewer replica, which is that yellow glider longboard gun. And that served me. Unreal. I left that over there for later in the season.

So, in the space of two weeks in total, would you say you have ridden at least 20 surfboards?

Yeah, I definitely rode about 20 boards. Yeah, it ended up being about three and a half weeks, nearly a month. My trip was meant to be two weeks but I extended it. And yeah, I rode close to 20 boards. The workable quiver that I have over there is 12 of my own boards, but I borrowed at least another eight.

I guess figuring out something new is part of the challenge, isn't it?

100% right? And given the consistency of the swell over there and the energy, I'm feeling new things as it is, but then on the second, third day of the swell, it's unreal just to swap boards and actually dial in what works for me. And I feel I've done that, especially with long boards, and definitely with mid-lengths and fishes. Over the years in Sydney, I've had absolutely no one to compare notes with growing up, and then you'd go to somewhere like Southern California, or you'd go somewhere and surf with like-minded people, but to get that same fix in bigger waves (in Hawaii). Everyone just flips boards over. And checks the fins – Or at least I do – the bottom contours, rails. And I met really cool personalities of all ages, shapers, surf fans, you know, people who do a season over there, corporate guys, or even retirees that have moved over there to, you know, chase the dream, or at least, spend a season – They’re all board fans. And all you need to do is just ask, ‘What board are you ridin’? And most of the time it really breaks the ice… But occasionally, and understandably, you get people who just look straight through you too.

Author: Luke Kennedy