"Waimea's looking kinda boring, Pipe is looking...big."
Piloting his big orange 8'6", now four seasons old and recently rescued off the rocks at Waimea, Healey picks off a Second Reef double up into compression chamber.
As is often the case with Healey, the retelling is as entertaining as the vision.
"That board felt like the starting point for a new life."
The inner mechanics of Russell's mind.
Sniffing out the bounty on land and at sea.
From a day with a low wave count yet high consequence.
Like a hundred social media clips joined together but not on social media.
Seeking darkness on a sunny day.
And Matahi lifts the bar yet again.
Bite size humans in king size waves.
Comments
Love it.
Big board, full speed Pipe; so much better than slide arse and stall. Imho.
And you can't not enjoy his enthusiasm.
Edit: Anthony Walsh with the casual look-back at 3:00?
So casual & relaxed. He’s great to listen to. Interesting to hear him describe that close out wipeout, skipping & tumbling across the bottom at high speed just lightly glancing the reef sections, hoping not to fully connect. Yet so many of these guys still refuse to wear helmets, which might just save their lives one day. Consciously excepting that risk yet training so hard & being so dedicated to avoiding other risks of potential drowning, injury & death.
How effective are the helmets? I wonder as compared to a motorcycle helmet they are a plastic plate on your noggin. Love to see the testing as they don't seem to have much padding.
https://store.surfsafetyaustralia.com.au/product/slsa-approved-helmet-g…
https://surfhungry.com/surf-helmets/
Thanks udo but didn't get very far. The EN 1385 relates to canoeing and white water sports and to look at the Euro standard mean't ponying up around $40-$60 dollars. Would be interesting for someone to do a surfing specific standard but as always very small market for it. I am sure there is some protection but wether it would save you from a real HD reef slam on the head is debatable without some serious research. I know from motorcycles a lot of it is about absorbing the impact and there doesn't look much in those helmets.
They wouldn’t necessarily prevent you from being knocked unconscious but I reckon they could prevent receiving a serious head trauma, which might be the difference between life & death. Your still going to want it to be your lucky day that’s for sure.
Can't believe how he talks so casual after a wave like that? Zen master all around.
Pipes been cranking this year. beautiful
Pipe gets a lot better than that wave. Pretty short and not that deep imo.
Jeez, that island sun is not kind to the skin... How old is Healey, 40?
He’s a ranga! What do you expect! :-0
Made my day seeing this.
Him and JJF are my two faves. JJF purely for surfing, not interested in hearing him speak, and Healey for his big wave fearlessness and the way he can tell a yarn, and being a similar age to me I’ve followed his career since he was a young guy first appearing in mags when I was about 15. (and he’s a goofy)
And groundy I reckon you’re severely underestimating how heavy that wave he made was
Epic
Agreed Goofyfoot, huge fan of them both too.
That exit from the barrel over that double up was incredible. Literally had the wave inches away from trying to take him out on each side of him and held that one critical line down that double up..would have been a few Gs going through his board and body as he escaped to victory. What a wave.
Old Orange Favorite ?
Incredible stall on an 8'6, aye!
Unbelievable!! How!!!??
This one ain't bad either:
With Reef Mc - back from when Boardies were below the Knees
haha cool. Insane waves in both the above vids. Ridiculous.
I remember reading an interview years ago or could of even been on a video when they were interviewing the absolute who’s who of big wave mad dogs, and I think the question was something like “who is the biggest psycho out of all you guys, who is really the maddest?” And I think it was Kohl C who said Healey, he’ll hold the line and stay on the take off area when the biggest set on the biggest day is coming. Everyone else will be paddling for the horizon except him….
Shaun Briley used to be the main psycho from what I read, remember reading this story of him paddling out on some stupid big day (could have been the comp on or something to that effect), catching biggest set of day in, yelling 'mad skillz' on the beach then walking off...
https://stabmag.com/news/how-to-stuff-pipeline-closeouts-like-a-madman/
Goofyfoot,
I've surfed with Healy a bunch. Most of time it was just us two surfing.
He goes left were you should be going right.(waimea).
Then when it starts looking like the bay is about to close out he starts going right and pulling in pigdog from takeoff.......
In real life he is super humble .
That would be unreal to see from the water.
He’s a different human for sure
Guru for sure. So many big paddle limits challenged by this generation of riders. epic
70 percent stress to 30 percent actual wave riding that could cost you your life. Pretty wild. They make it look easy that we are becoming normalised to it. They prepare for survival. Nuts. (like mountain skiing etc). looking forward to seeing another big cloud break day paddled in the future.
Old mate Mark’s spearing vids are on another level. He can hold his breath over 6 minutes on a dive and 8 mins static (in a pool). That might give you a bit of confidence in the big stuff!
ha ha mad dogs
Pipe is still the wave by which all others are measured.