The fledgling business generates a powerful buzz amongst the hard-core local surfers, but shooting publicity shots, as Jimmy is towed onto a huge wave at a surf break called "the Morgue", causes tensions as their boat capsizes and JB's expensive waterproof camera is lost. JB embodies the era's anti-establishment vibe and is skeptical of Andy's interest in expanding his business, but soon realizes if the brothers can survive and stay true to their surfing roots, they might be part of something greater. The brothers start a business called Drift, and their troubles with a drug-dealing biker gang begin to escalate. JB, an infamous itinerant surf filmmaker ( Sam Worthington) and Lani ( Lesley-Ann Brandt), his Hawaiian companion, drive into town in a converted school bus towing a Mini Moke. Andy sees a gap in the market and fashions custom-made wetsuits sewed by Kat, and new short surfboards in their backyard garage, eventually attracting some sales, although they are refused a bank loan to develop the business. Determined to escape their lack of prospects, headstrong Andy and his brother form a volatile alliance. Older brother Andy ( Myles Pollard) works in a timber mill: surf prodigy Jimmy ( Xavier Samuel) wins the 1972 Seacliffe Amateur surf title - but away from the surf, he is listless and involved in petty crime. The film then cuts forward to 1972 their time as young adults, living with their mum in a run-down house she bought by the beach. Arriving south of Perth on the West Coast, they spot a perfect surf break and convince Kat to settle instead in a caravan park in Seacliffe (filmed in Margaret River), and the kids attend a local school while their mother does piecework as a seamstress.
They cross the continent with the intention of hiding out and making a new start in distant Albany, Western Australia. In the late 1960s two young brothers in Sydney escape a violent household with their mother Kat ( Robyn Malcolm) by stealing the family car as her partner sleeps.