Just a short drive up the road from Pipeline is secretly one of the trickiest waves on tour.

Sunset Beach is unpredictable, raw, and vast. There are endlessly shifting peaks, ripping currents, and horizon-covering cleanup sets more often than not. It’s the sort of wave where heats are won not by on-wave ability but grit, local knowledge, and just putting your head down and using all your strength to paddle, and paddle, and paddle. Two-time Sunset Beach and World Champion Tom Carrol put it best: “To win at Sunset you need dominance, experience, and an uncanny ability to create a s*it load to go your way.”

805 Authentico Conner Coffin is no stranger to Sunset’s massive playing field. His signature power surfing style came courtesy of hold downs, football-field(s) length paddles, and all-time waves there over the years. He knows dialing it in isn’t light work, which probably would explain why he won the whole event back in 2017. 

With the Hurley Pro Sunset Beach well underway, we decided to have a behind-the-scenes chat with Conner while filming Ep 02 of our new, 805 Beer original podcast, Cold Beer Surf Club, to see if he had any tips on cracking one of surfing’s wildest venues.

As the World Surf League‘s 2024 season gets underway, we’ll be serving up an insider’s look at each wave on tour in Tour Take, our original 805 Beer series starring Conner Coffin. You can catch all the latest episodes of Tour Take below now, and stay tuned right here and follow us on our socials so you don’t miss a beat, set wave, or take.

Conner’s Tour Take: Pipeline