Thrills: Billy Kemper wins Peahi Challenge!

This is what the Big Wave World Tour is supposed to be.

I was hoping I could pass off the semis and finals to either Chas or Derek, but it looks like I’m all in on this one.

So, everyone do me a favor and lay off complaining about typos. Writing this much this fast is kind of difficult. Not as hard as a proper roundhouse cutback, but still damn challenging.

Plus I keep hitting the space bar twice after every fucking period and I’m trying to break myself of the habit, which is making everything even more difficult.

So, yeah, I’m running spell check and sending it off.

If you’ve got a problem with that level of effort keep it to yourself. Or don’t. It’s the internet, nothing stopping you from trying to hurt my feelings. Helps me build a thick skin anyway, and I’m finding that the less I care the better I write.

Semi-final one was a pretty timid affair, compared to the early rounds. Second water patrol went down, gonna take some work to get that ski running again. But the swell seems to be tapering off a bit.

Or there’s just a long lull in the power before it turns back on. Because that’ll happen on big days, it drops a bit, you paddle inside, then watch one cap out the back. Nothing to do but sit and wait and take your beating.

Ever experienced baurotrauma? Shit hurts, bad. Easy to blow out your ear drums. Just one of the million not so little things that makes surfing waves this size so gnarly. Something most people never consider.

I once asked Dave Wassel about the pressure change you experience diving under waves this size.  Every 33 feet underwater is another atmosphere of pressure you need to equalize, a 60-foot face rolling over your head makes that pressure differential instantaneous.

Ever experienced baurotrauma? Shit hurts, bad. Easy to blow out your ear drums. Just one of the million not so little things that makes surfing waves this size so gnarly. Something most people never consider.

Billy Kemper got second in his heat with only one wave! Local boy is killing it!

Ski three gets flipped, driver’s okay, looks like his fins got ripped off. How much are they paying these guys? No way it’s enough. Unionize, unionize, unionize, boys. If you’re making less than $10k a day, each, you’re getting ripped the fuck off.

Greg Long. I don’t even know what to say about the guy. Remember when he was on the NSSA, riding strangely long boards, surfing with his kind of funky style? I never understood how he made heats, much less won a title in 2001. Giving up on that garbage did the world a favor, turned him into one of the best big-wave surfers who has ever lived. It’s time to change our bumper stickers, when you want to play at crazy scream “Greg would go!”

Like I said in the first installment, in my eyes Dorian won the contest before it began. But Albee, Albee Layer, riding his tiny little board and treating Pe’ahi the way John John treats overhead Backdoor. Like there are no consequences, like this is just another day.

Ski three gets flipped, driver’s okay, looks like his fins got ripped off. How much are they paying these guys? No way it’s enough. Unionize, unionize, unionize, boys. If you’re making less than $10k a day, each, you’re getting ripped the fuck off.

Mark my words, Layer just redefined appropriate Big, capital b, wave equipment. Double middle finger claim in the barrel, followed by Tarzan chest thump, then straight-up robbery from the judges. Because it wasn’t big enough? Because wave knowledge and positioning counts for nothing?

Nope, because putting a number on performance in these conditions is ridiculous. Impossible.

Wrong no matter what.

And who cares, anyway?

There’s always someone who pushes the limits of acceptable gear, and at Pe’ahi, at this size, Layer just did it and that’s what’s important. We’re gonna see boards get shorter, much shorter. We’re gonna see barrels get deeper, much deeper.

Thank you, Albee. I doubt you’ll get the credit, but this guy knows it was all you, today, changing the course of the future because you’re the one who took the chance.

This is no different than the guys who showed “unsurfable” waves could be towed into. No different than the heroes who refused the ski and proved you could paddle. This is important, the ramifications are far reaching, will be felt for a long fucking time.

AND HERE COMES THE FINAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Albee Layer: I love you! You’re important. Renegotiate every single contract you’ve signed.

Billy Kemper: Local killer! So many beatings, so much ripping!

Gabriel Villaran: ¡Estoy tan feliz de un sudamericano hizo la final!

Greg Long: Pure legend, pure commitment.

Ian Walsh: You’ve been at this level for so damn long I forgot you’re younger than me.

Shane Dorian: Thank god you sucked at acting. If you’d been any good you wouldn’t be here, today.

Three Maui boys in the final! Who’d’ve thunk it?

Pretty much everyone, right?

What is it about redneck aloha land that churns out so much talent? How the fuck can someone throw huge airs and still charge at an elite level?

Y’all are the surfers Laird always wanted to be.

Since there’s a break before the finals, I’m gonna crack a cold one, or three, and try to figure out who decided that “BIG WAVE” was the best thing to print on the back of the jerseys.

One more hour, then I get to head to the beach and see what I missed while sitting on my ass watching other people surf.

The final’s started, no one’s caught anything yet, so let’s reflect for a moment on how awesome the 21^st century has been for surfing.

Twenty years ago, when the magazines mattered, we’d have read of this contest months after the fact. A short write-up, a handful of cherry picked photos, wave face rendered flat by a long lens.

None of the immediacy, none of the passion. Just an acknowledgment of something important that happened long after it mattered.

Today set a high standard, one the WSL will have trouble matching. Probably won’t, ever.

But that’s a problem for those looking to make a buck off the men risking their lives. For you and me, man, what a day!

A day that looks like it’s heading toward anti-climax.

Oh no! It’s gone flat!

Or maybe not.

Layer takes a beating, Walsh gets murdered when the wind gets under him, and Kemper slays it on the third.

That much speed, so much foam in the rail, pocket ride on a beast. Holding that line on a board that thick, glassed so heavy there ain’t no flex at all, is no mean feat. If the swell does what it seems to be, that one may be the heat winner.

But here comes Albee. All his weight forward on that entry rocker, slowing down, hand drag to pump the brakes even more. It’s Albee, I’m calling it with thirty five minutes left. He’s not only won this event, but established himself as something special.

But, nope, it’s Kemper in the lead.

And I can’t complain. Yeah, I’m all Albee, but I think I’m creeping up on a man-crush, so I’m hardly impartial.

And these fucking guys, jeez Louise…  WSL needs to pull a PR coup, call ’em all winners, and peel off $25k a piece. Oh, man, that’d sell well.

Think they’ll do it?

Dorian must be spent. I can’t believe any of the surfers have the energy to remain upright, much less generate the power to scratch into these bombs.

Is PK on Maui? I’d love to see a #TourNotes shot tomorrow, when everyone is ruined, barely able to stand. A day like today takes a heavy toll, post accomplishment depression grips the best of us.

After the fact you stop thinking about what you’ve done, you start worrying about what you’ll do next.

An aside: breathhold training is more or less nonsense. I’m an overweight guy who smokes too much, my freedive trip is on par with the best of these folks. It’s confidence that keeps you alive, a belief in yourself, your ability, a familiarity with the agony of carbon dioxide build-up. I get rattled on a twenty foot hold down, swimming down past a hundred feet ain’t shit in comparison. Save your money, those big wave training courses are kind of a scam. Not in an evil way, it’s just damn hard earning a living as a freedive instructor, can’t blame the dudes for grabbing a buck where they can.

And it’s a win for Kemper!

Man tears, totally earned. I get it, I cry at the drop of a hat. And I ain’t never accomplished nothing of consequence.

This is what the Big Wave World Tour is supposed to be.

Too bad today was magic, won’t happen again soon, if ever. The notion is just as dumb today as it was when it was concieved.

And don’t think I’ll forget I wasn’t welcome. I hold on to that type of shit.