Pipeline: Surf bros Beatty and Hall
Auston Hall was a dominant South Bay Surfer while at South Torrance. Photo by Dave Gregerson (20foot.com)
Surfing may be an individual sport, but every surfer has a buddy out there with him in case you get hurt and, more importantly, to see your best rides. Conor Beatty and Austin Hall push each other to new limits on every wave. Conor, the 16-year-old 5-foot-10, 135 pound regular foot (left foot forward), and 19 year old 5-foot-11, 145 pound, goofy foot, right foot forward, Austin both burst with excitement when talking about surfing.
Conor was pushed into his first wave by his father when he was 7 years old at Redondo’s Rat Beach on a thick, 6-foot-6 ET Surfboard.
Austin had to wait until he was 12 years old before his dad pushed him into the Torrance Beach shore break on his new 5-foot-10 Spyder Surfboard.
Today Conor rips on his 5-foot-10 James Wheatley squash tail and Austin tears it up on his 5-foot-10 Dreiling round tail in Redondo’s Burnout barrels. Conor says that getting deep in the tube is his favorite thing to do, while Austin prefers big airs off the top. They both credit local pro surfers Holly Beck, Alex Gray and Greg Browning for inspiring them to make the most out of every wave.
Connor Beaty takes on big Breakwall in January. Photo by Randy Ruby
Conor and Austin are well traveled, having surfed all over Baja and mainland Mexico, Nicaragua, Hawaii, Fiji, Puerto Rico, and Indonesia. Conor won two Vulcan contest and the Ratopia, where he got a free surfboard. Austin won two STD Contests at El Porto and a Christian Surfing Foundation contest at Torrance Beach that helped. They are sponsored by South Bay-based Aftermath Clothing.
Conor surfs for Spyder and Austin surfs for Dreiling Surfboards and ET Surf Shop. Austin graduated from South High School and is now attending El Camino Community College while Conor is a major asset to the Redondo High’s surf team. They both agree that all the high school surf teams are good this year but feel that Mira Costa and Palos Verdes have the most depth.
Austin’s blond girlfriend Taylor looked envious sitting between the two as they carried on about their favorite spots. Conor swears that Nicaragua is a surfer’s paradise while Austin calls the tubes breaking off Indonesia’s outer islands surfing heaven. Austin spoke of a freight train tube called Green Bush where he dropped in late on a 12-foot monster. Austin said “It was a gnarly sick tube that sucked all the speed out of my board leaving me stuck inside over the dry reef with no place to go but over the falls twice. I almost blacked out and then was bounced off the bottom. I don’t know how I came up.”
After that experience Austin calls surfing big Breakwater a walk in the park.
Conor was having the surf trip of his dreams sailing from spot to spot off the Mentawai Islands when he paddled out at “Hollow Tree’s.” Conor said that he didn’t know how big it was until he sat in the line-up. Conor went on, “I wanted to show everyone that I could go for it in big waves so I stroked into the biggest wave in the first twelve foot set. The wave was over 15 feet and halfway down the face I regretted charging it. I was standing in the sickest, gnarly tube of my life realizing I was too deep with no way out. My board hit a chop that sent me skipping for 50 yards. It was like I fell doing high speed water skiing. I kept me bouncing across the face before getting sucked over the falls. The white water smashed me to the bottom like an avalanche. It was brutal getting to the surface. I was still dizzy an hour later.”
Conor and Austin would love to surf on the pro circuit, but tell me they have to practice more difficult maneuvers and need more wave hours to do them. While acknowledging that the South Bay is loaded with talent, they said that when you go on the road you see 12-year-old kids already knocking on the door of the pro contest circuit.
Conor wants to ride Morocco’s perfect right point breaks and Austin wants to get deep in the tube of South Australia’s left reef breaks. And they want to do it together because they aren’t just friends, they’re surfing buddies. ER