Surfabout

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Surfabout was a surfing competition held annually in Sydney, Australia between 1974 and 1991^{[citation needed]}. It was sponsored by Coca Cola and radio station 2SM and hence called the Coke Surfabout or the Coke/2SM Surfabout. The contest was run in late Autumn, after the Bells Beach Classic at Easter.

The contest was oriented towards television, it had a waiting period and was mobile so it could go to the best waves on Sydney's northern beaches.

In 1979 the contest director was Paul Holmes, editor of Tracks magazine. He'd done the job the previous year and had been blessed with excellent waves. But for 1979, down to the round of 16, Sydney went completely flat and showed no signs of improving. Holmes showed just how mobile a "mobile" contest could be when he flew the entire contest 1200km to to big cold waves at Bells Beach for the remaining rounds.

In 1991 Coke ran a promotion giving the winner of a "pick the best wave" television competition a spot competing in the Surfabout. This was controversial among professional surfers because it would put some couch potato into a contest which had, at the time, the second-highest prize money on the world tour. Mark Richards defended them, saying "without Coke there is no such thing as professional surfing in Australia". The idea might have been a stunt, but with an endorsement like that from one of the big names in Australian surfing the controversy evaporated.