Talking Surf Wipeouts
There are tons of crazy wipeout videos out there and I guess pretty much every surfer with internet connection (bad joke I know…) has watched at least some of those. Many are somewhat borderline entertaining when mashing up evil wipeouts with aggressive songs – and there are even trophies like the ‘Wipeout of the Year Award‘ and so on. I was often wondering though what those pro surfers think/do/feel when they suffer those insane big wave wipeouts – so I was looking through a tons of videos and sorted out the ones where there is some interesting talking of the pros going on. Let’s talk pipe first!
Banzai Pipeline is probably the most known and feared wave in the world – even people without any interest in surfing must have come across a picture on some magazine cover at some stage. Pipeline is located on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii. It is so spectacular because the wave breaks very close to the beach over a super shallow reef – good for spectators, bad for surfers making mistakes… So let’s hear from the experts – the Pipeline Posse – what the story is when surfing one of the deadliest waves in the world:
Let#s move on with a short clip of the session “Talkin’ Pipe” starring surf heroes and Pipeline legends Gerry Lopez and Jock Sutherland. The event took place at the Patagonia surf shop in Cardiff, California. This is the part about wipeouts – including some valuable tips if the worst case scenario happens. Amazing stuff – make sure to check out the whole series!
Alright – let’s make a shift back form the surf legends to a current pro: Mark Healy – characterized as “driven but humble, reckless but smart” on his Quicksilver profile page. Healy is one of the most fearless big wave surfers and apparently a really nice guy – check the videos on his profile page – they are really cool – spearfishing with sharks and so on… So let’s hear what Mark Healy has to tell us about one of his bad wipeouts at Pipe:
And because Healy is such a nice guy to listen to – let’s just continue and listen to his comments and thoughts of his big splash at another world famous shallow reef break: Tahiti’s Teahupo’o:
A lot of luck for Mark Healy – but as he said – if it really happens, it is up to god to decide if you survive or if you get smashed like a bug on the windshield on some razor sharp reef. Usually the bad accidents happen at those shallow reef breaks, but one of the most tragic deahts in surf history occurred in much deeper water: Mark Fu‘s tragic wipeout at Mavericks, a wave located off Half Moon Bay in California. It seems that Fu’s leash may have been caught underwater and prevented him to get back to the surface.
Some more comments on less tragic Maverick’s wipeouts:
Another mean wipeout is the deep dive from Eric Akiskalian on Sharks Park, a spot offshore Santa Barbara County. Maximun creepy.
Alright – that should be it for now. I have piled up another 5 to 10 wipeouts videos, but I actually have another ‘surf post series idea’ in mind, so check back and happy surf!
This entry was posted on Sunday, June 20th, 2010 at 9:49 pm and is filed under Internetzer, This and That. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
