Watch: Pipe Pro // The Best Rides From Day 1
Pipeline was far from classic on Day 1 of the Pipe Pro. Though the surface conditions were clean, a short-period swell and residual lump made for unpredictable sections; sometimes steep and focussing hard, other times falling away and offering respite.
Those who surfed well put themselves right on the apex, even on the opposite side at times, to maximise barrel time in peaky conditions.
If this video only had the excellent rides it'd be just 90 seconds long - there were just seven 8-plus rides all day - but fortunately it features other highlights too.
Comments
I used this image as homepage thumbnail. Anyone wanna have a swing at the wave size?
10'
That’s a 9 foot wave
Not sure if it is angle on the photo but stand him up that is 4 x overhead. 12ft +
Knees are slightly bent, and he's leaning a little.
~10ft for me.
Looks like Slater. Not quite at the bottom of the wave, but knees bent and slightly bent over so 4ft high as is and fits four times into the wave = 16ft.
I'd say 8-10.
Yep, it's KS. See 2:53 above for the ride.
When I was watching I thought I was watching 6-8ft Pipe, but when Dorian called it 10-12ft and I saw some of the stills, I upgraded my outlook.
8-10ft.
Hawaiian.
18-20 gold coast
10 vic
8 wa
3-4 Hawaiian bra
Nah...the Hawaiian scale has changed, GF.
Koa Rothman and JOB - two of Hawaii's leading surfers and vloggers - would have no shame calling that 20 feet in their YouToob clips.
Clicks, bra.
Beat me to the 4ft Hawaiian!
Haha GF, well played :)
Watched the Post Show last night - not a single mention of Filly, Medina or Italo. Are the Wozzle finally as over them and their constant sooking/victim game as the rest of us I wonder? Or is the narrative of piking, burning and whining just too much?
Pro surfer - so barely 5ft in height in that pose.
4 times overhead so 3-4ft Hawaiian
i reckon Robbo got an extra point on his next ride
10ft for me.
I'd say 10 foot.
Imagine ordering a Hawaiian pizza and what comes out is twice the size of all the other pizzas
Ha
Hahaha.
As opposed to the surf I can say from recent experience it'll likely come out no bigger (maybe even smaller) but it'll definitely be twice the price - Hawaiian cost of living through the roof!
Given your name, I'm definitely trusting you on food!
Much would be imported to Hawaii?
nice VJ, the raglan report '12-inch Hawaiian' skit writes itself!
('solid 10 ft' for me from that angle, bee's dick from 10+ or 10-12)
I'd say too big
i hate surf measuring. if i call that wave 18ft then everyone laughs at me, but there is no objective scale that can reasonably be used to measure waves which equates to that being 10+. i only know to call it 10+ because of what ive heard everyone else say when describing wave heights. i wish we could just call it for what it is. yet you move up a few notches into the big wave tour, and they call it for how it is - eg 60 - 100 foot faces at nazare. so if the big wave chargers can call it for what it is, why cant the rest of us? ego? embarassment? its like those canadian club ads, where the implication is we all drink beer just because everyone else does. we all measure waves that way too. 4 times overhead for a 6ft tall person does not logically equate to 10-12ft
scrotina, couldn't agree more. 100%... I mean, we don't surf the "back of the wave" FFS. So if it's 2 times over head and I'm 6ft then I'm looking at a 12ft wave when doing a bottom hand turn. (I know I'm going to get lectured about this! lol)
I've surfed Greenbush many times at around 1.5 times over head, so for me 8ft... the back of the wave would have been lucky to be 1.5ft... so where to now?
anyone who claims that 12ft waves are 4x overheated based on the ”back of the wave” is kidding themselves. Trying to rationalise their ego. Explain the unexplainable
Increments of fear.
Grif overscored @ ~0:35? Didn't look as deep as the others.
I’d call it three pairs of new undies.
not perfect pipe or back door, but still better than nearly anything I saw all last year. Or is my memory fcked?
Eleventeen feet?
"Tall" seemed to be the word of the day from KS
Loved Baron's effort
The crazy thing about Pipe it looks 10-12' at the apex 6' in the middle and 3-4' on the end section.
Why is it so? Its not like it's reflecting off a rock wall or anything ?
Is it two 6' swells doubling up?
More of a focusing of the swell than a true double up. It varies on swell angle. Socials in the Cooks does it to a bigger extent. The following shows a good example of the bathymetry . https://www.google.com/maps/place/21%C2%B012'08.6%22S+159%C2%B049'16.2%….
Its literally at the end of the airport runway before anyone wants to talk about spot sharing ethics.
Very interesting BI. Was looking to go with brother for a surf trip there. Is it easy enough to get to the breaks?
The bathymetry, socials looks nice and uniform, not sure about pipe. Swellnet and WSL have taken us through it, eg the underwater canyon at Nazare, must be something similar.
These spots exaggerate the swell height, makes it hard to measure but it always blows my mind how gnarly big and wide open it is at the peak and then have to tuck up so tight to get inside the end section 50 metres away
Always trips me out how much Pipe rears on that inside reef. Never been there but I still have never seen a wave as unmistakeable as that first reef Pipe wave that jacks up an extra few feet as the lip is about to pitch and the wave just goes beyond vert and bottoms out.
A proper Pipe heaver looks absolutely terrifying. Have tried to visualise a takeoff into the barrel on a proper one there but damn....everytime i do, i end up in Bedes position! haha. So much vertical speed and g forces off the bottom to control when it's doing it's thing.
And then you watch a John John surf it with so much finesse and playfulness.....you gotta wonder what planet he's from.
Current can be difficult for some of the southern passes at mid tide otherwise super easy. The island is large to require transport (car, bike). Note the trade wind directions and break locations before you go. Sticks can find the waves challenging.
See https://imgur.com/a/7qYgqtd for a more marked up version of the Socials reef. Also note that local swell direction can be more east than expected for south swells after coming around edgewater.
See https://briantissot.com/2020/04/13/what-lies-beneath-conquering-fear-at… for a good discussion on pipe. (2nd half is the more relevant part)
That last one about Pipe was a bloody awesome read @blow-in-9999.
Thanks so much. Made my day!
Excellent Intel thx BI
It's a big topic, but I've only got time for a short answer.
It's important to understand that most swell energy - particularly for groundswells - is carried deep in the water column. And though the ocean surface is flat the ocean floor isn't: even as it shallows towards land, there are irregularities such as mounts and canyons.
When swell energy begins feeling those shallower peaks and mounts it's forced upwards, meaning energy is forced higher in the water column than where the same swell line is travelling over a deeper section of seafloor.
Also, the swell line will refract ever so slightly around shallower mounts as it feels the friction of the (relatively) shallower bottom.
Generally these effects are not noticeable from land. What we see is the swell line approaching as a uniform vector of energy.
However, when the wave moves into water that's shallow enough to make it break, that shifting of sub-surface energy - both upwards and laterally - becomes apparent in how the wave breaks. That long line of swell will sometimes stand taller in particular areas, it can break harder, bend in unusual ways, and it can even carry abnormalities not desired by surfers.
At Pipeline, the shape is governed by the series of outside reefs that begin near Outside Log Cabins, and which bend the swell lines towards Pipe's inner reefs. Third Reef Pipe and Second Reef Pipe force swell energy upwards so it's riding high in the water column - but only for that forty or fifty metre wide peak, Pipe's channel rarely ever closes out - then by the time it hits Pipeline proper it's a top heavy conveyor that breaks faster than physics would seem to allow.
Similar dynamics present themselves just down the highway where Sunset Beach can be 12'-15', yet the channel next to it won't be breaking, with Kammies, on the other side of the channel, maybe 6'. Ostensibly, all are exposed to the same amount of swell energy, however it's the unseen bathymetry (ocean floor topography) that dictates which breaks get the size.
So good. Cheers @stu.
From a distant observation, it looks to me that a 6-8foot swell with a period greater than 15seconds (proper W/NW swell), is a whole world scarier than a 12foot swell with a period of 13 or so seconds.
Seems like those smaller longer period swells seem to swing around the outside reefs, rather than breaking on them, and focus all of that energy into first reef with way more ferocity.
Hmmm...maybe. In Hawaii, they all have certain flavours. Keep in mind that Hawaii doesn't have a continental shelf to mitigate swell energy and create uniformity of the incoming swell. Even a shorter period swell will do some wild things.
But yeah, I guess those really long period swells get a bit wilder.
yeah true...great point re. lack of continental shelf. Hadn't taken that into consideration on effect of wave period.
Definitely seems those outer reefs dictate alot with different size/period and angle.
And yep...that short period stuff the other day looked brutal.
Thanks Stu. Will be rereading your above post a few times to let it all sink in.
WNW swell bending off the reef at pipe Feb 2024
"a top heavy conveyor that breaks faster than physics would seem to allow."
Thanks for taking the time Stu, pipe is a freak of nature
11 foot Dandenong scale.
Big.
How about f&$$jg heavy!
No one judges from the back as it doesn't work for slabs as mentioned above.
It's more just half the face size to get the Aussie height.
50 ft Toledo Scale
It’s interesting to see what Surfline does with wave heights. They have 2 settings options for wave heights.
Face Height, or
Traditional (which is face height halved)
They say, “we have set Traditional as a default preference for Australian and New Zealand users, while the rest of the world defaults to Face Height.”
So, halving face height is the default Surfline setting in Australasia but not Hawaii.
Do they get extra points for doing a nice roundhouse cutback and foam bounce manoeuvre or is it just about the tube ride? I notice quite a few guys don't bother with it as its probably not worth getting caught inside and a lot of extra work when paddling back out. For me its the perfect way to finish a pipe wave and should be scored accordingly.
Doh
How big ?
Seriously bigger than what it lools like in the clips;
A bit smaller than it looks in that photo; and
Too big for the word champ
Watched all the highlights yesterday, best wave of the day was Jackson Bunch at the end of his heat, if it was JJF he would've got a 9.5
The lay day today
https://www.instagram.com/italoferreira/reel/C2-aVSpv3vc/?hl=en