A few years ago Ben Bourgeois was in the Sahara desert, it was only when his canteen and ration pack ran dry, that he aborted the saltwater surf mission and went searching for freshwater.
He later explained his single minded attitude to Transworld: "If the waves are good you do whatever it takes, I'll sleep anywhere, out in the cold, whatever."
New Jersey born, North Carolina raised, California based, but his home's always been on the road, in the air, on boats, wherever the waves are. And, as a teen (from the relative backwater of Wrightsville, NC) when those waves happened to be in heats he made a name as a contest conquistador.
Benny B left his first big global calling card as a 17-year-old, defeating the fancied new wave of Andy, CJ and Taj to win the ISA World Junior Champs. Though famous in the US in general and Wrightsville in particular, It soon became apparent, this was a talent so single-minded on the pure pursuit of surfing, that greatness (be it in a contest or alone on the farthest corners of the globe) was inevitable.
On a trip to the South Coast of NSW with Mick Fanning and Mick Lowe, Ben had necks swivelling off their hinges, attacking the country reefbreaks with fluency and hyper-speed.
Ben made the CT in 2000, soon after. Doing both tours eventually wore him down, trouble with knees, shoulders and eyes, and a couple of operations later he had rebuilt himself and continued to travel the world, leaving his bags at team manager and best mate Nutty Walker's place in Carlsbad.
With full backing from Reef, things changed, the bug was back and he started winning events from Cornwall to the Caribbean.
Like many qualifiers who broke through this year - Dan, Tiago, Bottle - Ben had been cruelly unlucky not to (re)crack the WCT code over the past five years. And now here it is, a deserving second bite of the WCT cherry for a surfer far too good to be anywhere but surfing the best waves on Earth.
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