25 year old Australian, Kerby Brown, rode the wave of his life on this 40 ft. monster in Western Australia (Times UK), followed shortly afterwards by the beating of his life. In spite of the fact that the wave was dry reefing, Kerby survived the wave with only a torn shoulder muscle.
The 25-year-old surfed the enormous break at an offshore reef in the Southern Ocean “somewhere between Margaret River and South Australia” on the southwest coast of Western Australia (WA) last August. Seems like there’s been a lot more big wave searching and a lot more discoveries out in Western Australia. Funny how they keep the location of this macker a secret, I can’t imagine that 20 tow teams are going to show up for this beast on the next swell.
Kerby on the wipe-out and hold down (Australia’s Surfing Life) “I was lucky to get to where I got, I went straight over in the lip and did about 10 backflips and then pulled a muscle in my shoulder. It felt like I ripped my arm out of it’s socket, my leggie snapped and then I felt like I was the deepest I’d ever been (underwater). I took about 10 huge big strokes to get up and I was seriously struggling. I finally got to the surface and I was ready to pass out, luckily my brother was there on the ski.”
Not surprisingly, the wave is being submitted to the Oakley Australia Surfing Life Big Wave Awards. It’s being touted as the largest wave surfed in Australia this year. Photo credit: Andrew Buckley (profile on Club of the Waves). Slideshow below, click here for full-frame slideshow.
Winter arrived last week in California with the first serious swell, which resulted in giant waves at Ocean Beach, San Francisco, and Mavericks rearing it ugly green head. The northwest swell linked up well with a southwest swell which put out some great waves in Southern California as well. Surfline has a good slideshow of the swell.
The first real swell of the season arrives at Ocean Beach, San Francisco. The buoys on Saturday were reading 15 ft. at 20 seconds (Somehow hardly any of this swell filtered down to Southern California). Ocean Beach was huge. A few local chargers managed a few giant waves dodging clean up sets. Link to the full size slideshow on Flickr.
OK, granted this actually happened in January of 2008, it’s still worth posting. A couple of bodyboarders decided to charge huge storm waves in Cornwall, England. Originally posted in the Daily Mail UK, the newspaper claims the waves are 50 ft. The whitewash might be 50 ft, but the waves look more like 12. Still pretty heavy for the UK. This guy either charged hard or got caught in the worst rip current of his life.
The trials for the WCT’s third stop at Teahupoo got under way over the weekend. They had to halt the trials because a huge west swell. So Jamie O’Brien, Garrett McNamara, Dylan Longbottom, and a few dozen others traded their paddle boards for tow boards and pulled into some monster barrels. Here’s a link to photographer, Tim McKenna’s photo site (link). Teahupoo never ceases to amaze.
Billabong announced the winners of the annual Billabong XXL competition on Sunday (link). Shane Dorian won ride of the year for his heaving tube at Teahupoo on November 1st. Manoa Drollet won Monster Tube Award for an equally crazy wave on the same day.
Mike Parson took the Biggest Wave with a 70 ft + wave at Cortes Bank. Greg Long won Biggest Paddle-In wave with a bomb at Todos Santos.
Winter 2007-2008 was good, and big. We saw a few big swells on the West Coast and some consistent surf in between. Some were calling the December 4, 2007 swell at Mavericks and Ghost Trees some of the biggest surf there ever (link). Meanwhile, a team of tow surfers including Mike Parson and Brad Gerlach hit Cortes Bank to score huge surf there (link). Both swells created some epic rides and Billabong XXL contenders.
Billabong’s posted their 2008 XXL Ride of the Year Nominees. In case you hadn’t heard, Billabong sponsors the XXL contest and gives awards (and cash) for Biggest Wave, Ride of the Year, Monster Paddles, and Monster Tube. They’ve got all the video submissions on their website. The Ride of the Year winner gets $50,000. Don’t quit your day job yet.
Here are my top videos of the past couple years. Any others you guys think deserve mention?
Movie: My Eyes Won’t Dry 2
It’s safe to say that the surfer, Brian Conley, lives the life. He gets paid by his sponsor Oakley to travel the world and surf the best, most perfect waves. That’s his actual contract right there. A couple years ago he released “My Eyes Won’t Dry.” The footage is primarily video footage taken from inside the barrel. Any great movie, deserves a sequel. Brian surfs Indo, Mexico, Australian and generally the best barrels in the world and films them from his board. The effect is mesmerizing. The dub soundtrack, however, may take the sober-ear some getting used to.
