After a controversial defeat in San Diego by Australian Nat Young, nine American surfers, members of the Wind and Sea Surf Club, go to the South Pacific and Australia for a rematch. They stop in Fiji, where they are the first surfers, and in New Zealand, which elates them. In Sydney, the Americans are disappointed to learn that neither Young nor Australia's second top surfer, Bob McTavish, will compete. The visitors are surprised, too, by a new and shorter surfboard called a "plastic machine." Invented by an American youth, George Greenough, who spends half his time in Australia, the board features a "V" bottom. Nat Young, regarded by many as the world's finest surfer, has watched surfing become the inevitable commercial success. Now, he surfs only to find himself as he communicates with nature and the sea.