06-07-2025
Goon bag rider James McAnaulty pushes boundaries of fringe surfing
James McAnaulty surfs like no other.
He slides down the face of waves on Western Australia's southern coast on an empty wine bladder.
The "goon bag" is half inflated and hashed with lines of wax.
"It's legit," Mr McAnaulty says.
"It's got nice pull; it's got nice drag.
"It's a legit surf craft that I highly rate."
It's not the only unconventional surf craft he's tried.
His foray into the alternative world of surfing began when a mate challenged him to catch a wave with an inflatable travel pillow.
"That got my attention, so from that I went on to surf mats," Mr McAnaulty says.
"I've tried the Maccas tray, that was fun, bit hard on the thumbs.
"I've tried hand planes, they're not too bad, and lots of mini short boards like kick boards and paddle boards."
Then an empty goon bag on the kitchen bench struck him as not dissimilar to an inflatable surf mat.
With a set of fins in tow, he headed to the beach to test it out.
"It's very slippery; you need to wax up," he says.
"Deflation levels as well need to be a certain nice level, so it's not too round and not too low.
"Challenging, it's good cardio, lots of work on the thighs."
After only a few sessions refining preparation and technique, it became his surf craft of choice.
"This is the pinnacle," he says.
The goon bag, Mr McAnaulty says, fits firmly in the field of "fringe surfing".
"It's just an alternative way of riding surf crafts, it's very open, like anything goes really," he says.
"Just make it fun for yourself, pretty much, and try not to live by other people's expectations of what's cool."
Watching from afar, a burgeoning fringe surf community in the United Kingdom is spurring on Mr McAnaulty's creativity in the waves.
On the UK's rugged south-west coast, veteran surfer turned fringe surf enthusiast Steven Halpin has just launched an alternative surf magazine.
"The more I came across the characters that make up the fringe of surfing, the more I related to them," he says.
"The lack of ego, treading their own path, as surfing became more mainstream.
"I'll never look back."
The owner of the Fringe Surf Shop in Newquay, Mr Halpin defines fringe as anything outside of mainstream that enables you to "get your slide on".
"I guess bodyboarding is also fringe … they are brothers and sisters of the slide, and I respect them greatly," he says.
His own repertoire of "weird and wonderful" includes burger trays, surf mats, and hand planes.
"Sometimes it's a nightmare trying to decide which one to take, as I have so many to choose from, but I pretty much always have a blast on all of them," Mr Halpin says.
While many of these are not new, Mr Halpin says there is a growing number of traditional surfers turning to fringe craft.
"Whether it's due to age, injury, or just wanting to find a different way to slide waves, it's really grown over here," he says.
The longtime editor of Real Surfing Magazine, Mr Halpin published the first edition of Fringe in May, initially running 500 copies, and going to reprint a fortnight later.
"I was so shocked, it turns out there are more of us around the world than I thought," he says.
Orders had come in from America, Europe, South Korea, Japan, South Africa and Australia.
"I'm stoked and hope that it can inspire people to just get in the water, have fun again, and put a big smile on their faces."
In Australia, Johannes Oberholster rises early to build surf mats in his home studio in Brisbane before his day job.
He became enthralled with mat riding in 2021, when he realised he could easily pack one on an overseas trip.
"You're sort of sliding around and getting amazing speed down the line, I'm just loving the fun of it and just the feeling of it," he says.
"It's a very welcoming community, and everybody just wants to have fun."
Each mat takes him around six hours to build, and since launching Cumulus Surf Mats in early 2023, he's sold nearly 250 mats.
"Probably 10 years ago, it was really considered quite a niche market, quite fringe," Mr Oberholster says.
Interest has peaked in the past five years, Mr Oberholster says, in part thanks to social media.
"Everyone's always looking for the new thing." Mr Oberholster says.
"You definitely see a lot more younger surfers surfing them now, especially in Australia, whether it's Byron Bay, Noosa, anywhere where there's a nice long point."
