Watch: Teahupoo // Code Rouge
Similar to last winter, Teahupoo is having a stellar season with many swells hitting in succession, followed by a few weeks of downtime before the regime kicks back in again.
The pattern allows surfers to push their limits, then regroup and lick wounds or get new boards before the next round of swell when they can pick up where they left off.
The difference this winter is that Tahiti closed its borders to international travellers in March and then reopened them in a limited capacity. The end result being, aside from a few travellers, the surfers were largely locals only.
The other difference to last winter is that a couple of swells have spiked into the XXL range, the most recent just two days ago when both Kauli Vaast - first video video below - and Matahi Drollet - second video - whipped into spectacular waves.
The day's best waves filmed by Drone in Tahiti.
Comments
Farkn nuts!!
Let me pick my jaw off the floor. That lip pitch in the first post was crazy....gotta hurt
heavy. on that first wave, it kinda looked like a drop in - the second rider who let go of the rope and then pulled off actually started deeper. didnt think that stuff happened in waves of such consequence. would have liked to see all the drone footage instead of brief clips of each wave. looked amazing, shit music tho
THATS INSANE locals are absolutely FROTHING I BET
Not many people know this but the general population down at the end of the road especially the locals that live near the water have been decimated by the huge surf that actually pounded the coast there. You only have to look at Matahi Drollet's social feed plus Raimana's where the surf actually came up enough to flood the houses, garderns etc. Matahi's house which is two K's away from Teahupoo has a jetty that was pretty much destroyed. Water actually went through bedroom. So my point is, a lot of the locals have been effected by this swell event plus they are also hurting big time as a lot them rely on the WSL event which was cancelled at the last minute. So in all the positives there's some real negatives with this CODE ROUGE.
thankyou for these words tim, must have sucked for you to have watched all this. i know you would have been hurting;.
The same happened with the 'Code Red' swell. Getting the boat out from the harbour i could see fridges, backyard toys and debris floating through the water. The water surge does cause a lot of damage. It's a powerful force of nature hitting the reef though.
Hard to believe their aren't more serious injuries with the 'lip launches'
There'd be a lot of infragravity wave action causing those surges as well!
https://www.swellnet.com/news/swellnet-analysis/2019/06/11/waves-youve-n...
Hey and how’s that flooding inn central all Europe we been, Fark. Even Saudi got hammered. Plus the war, displacement and poverty in Afghanistan and Iraq again, Lebanon fingered, and so many more. Pity you couldn’t be there to help.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts
Thanks Tim for the back story. Will pray for the locals affected adversely by these swells and the pandemic.
Water colour seems weird in that second clip. Reminds me of Kelly Slater pro surfer on playstation.
How Kauli Vaast survived that first wipeout no one will ever know
As if the wave isn't dangerous enough, let's -
a. run jet skis at mega speed through the pack, and
b. park as many boats as possible as close as possible to the kick-out zone.
how does one live after falling on a wave like that?!
Thanks Tim for the insight had no idea ..
That's impressive!
Having never experienced that - can anyone with first hand experience actually explain how the human body (and mind) survives that pressure and violent force? Do you roll in a ball? Do you rag doll? Do you fight? How long are you down? What actually HAPPENS? I take my experience of wipeouts and then try and multiply it out....but my brain gets to the same point it does when you try and imagine the what existed before the big bang.....
I would love someone's experience as well for the same reasons. There's 2 waves that are top-of-the-food-chain for me and that's The Right and this one.
How do people actually survive those waves with any regularity?
Spoke to Tim yesterday and he spoke to Kauli Vaast on the phone and said there were rocks and chunks of coral moving around after getting sucked over the falls on that bomb, bouncing off the bottom and he even got coral in his vest! That's crazy.
So exactly how deep is it there at the crunch-zone?
Most amazing wave.
Some cool angles from this drone, especially the final wave at 3.15... the pack scrambling, one not so lucky punter
Nathan Florence has a great video on YouTube of the whole day, from padding in the morning to towing, I’m too much of a tech kook to share it
I think I just watched it. Awesome angles and waves. Un-kooked it for ya
Anyone seen any footage from Barra the last few days?