How to surf Pipe (and Backdoor) with Mason Ho

Dino Andino, father of Kolohe, has known Mason since “forever” and says that Mason has an “uncanny ability to rider the tube, to control the speed of the wave” and that, alongside John John and Jamie O, “he’s the guy out there. When it’s heavy he’s just getting started.”

Why should you even throw yourself out at the world’s best, but most dangerous, wave? What have you got to gain, anyway?

“Well, first,” says Mason, “every little surf town has that one spot where all the heavies go, where all the icons and all the tourists go, and on the North Shore it’s… Pipe.

Have I sold his qualities? Now let’s hear his three tips on how to cut yourself a slice of the greatest wave on earth, Pipeline.

“Okay, this is counter-intuitive,” says Mason.”You spend the whole beginner years of your life believing the shoulder is safer. But Backdoor is dangerous on the shoulder. You’re going to take off with the lip on the shoulder. So! Kick back, wait for the best wave, and takeoff behind the peak. A bonus is you’ll actually get deep.”

“It’s a series of connect-the-dots,” says Mason, who admittedly, does it better than anybody. “Everybody sees different lines but there’s always a certain line, an instinctual line. There’s bubbles, there’s a double-up, all this stuff coming down the wave. You need to draw a line across it all and just… shoot. You beat off the chop, you beat down the double-up, you ride-out the foam-ball.” Confidence?  Yeah, you need it.

Mason has got his act down to a point where he can ride a larger-than-average board, in his case a six-three, and catch anything. And not just the outer reef roll-ins, but even the radical inside ledges. “I like to move around when I paddle,” says Mason, who enjoys the momentum a larger board gives. “The bigger boards make it easier to roll in, sure, but it’s nice to have a big board to swing around under the ledge. I don’t die big boards all the time but they do help me get to where I want to go.”