The Lopez Factor

On the cover: Shaun Manners, achieving low orbit somewhere in the Australian desert. “I love getting down to the dez,” says photographer Josh Tabone. “It’s cold. It’s raw. It’s a little bit eerie, and it kind of sorts the men from the boys.” Other glide paths inside include one woman’s inexplicable draw to the world’s deadliest wave, trafficking contraband via foam and fiberglass, the collision of aerospace and surf culture in a champion-breeding town, a freewheeling French Caribbean export, high-horsepower fabrications, and a low-brow artist’s big-wave motif.