Which wave would you rather wear?
The boys, our boys, are ready to tackle Sunset next, the second jewel in the Triple Crown, and the forecast is for big, burly surf. Heavy, rolling surf and do you like watching Sunset? Do you love the size of the field? The unpredictability? Back in 1980, famous surf journalist and editor of Surfer magazine Drew Kampion wrote Sunset “…is the standard by which other waves are measured, and the best surfers here are the best surfers, period.”
Over the years its shine has dimmed coinciding with Pipeline’s nuclear glow but I do think that Sunset is primed for a comeback. It is a wave that mocks the very idea of wave tanks. A wave the ocean should be proud of.
I’ve sat near the lifeguard towers there for a few World Cups, watching the boys, our boys, traverse the huge canvas. It’s a marvel that anyone knows where to sit. Pipeline seems easy to understand or at least easier. Everyone has a marker. Everyone has a corner. Sunset seems unknowable.
Yes, I’ve seen many big wipeouts at both Sunset and Pipeline and always felt worse for the ones who wear Pipeline on the head but a recent conversation with the great Michael Tomson has changed my mind. Tomson, of course, made a name for himself at both waves as part of the “Bustin Down the Door” crew. And let’s listen to him compare wipeouts at both.
I’ve nearly died at Sunset twice. At 50 and 52. And this one time I was out there and this set popped up and I said, “Fuck it. I’m gonna go.” And there it was, life on the table, got pounded, held down, thought I was dying right? Next thing is I’m being pulled up on a board. I couldn’t focus on anything, had to go to the hospital, it was all fucked. So I had another one like that at Sunset and I have become so careful now because when you fall there it is worse than Pipeline. Pipeline is violent but short. Sunset gets a hold of you in a fucking half-nelson then keeps you down for the longest time and then there is always seven waves behind it. I get cold thinking about some of the wipeouts I’ve had there…
And there you have it. A little something to think about as you watch the action either today or tomorrow.
Commented on Disqus? Log out, tap the Disqus button, and your old name and comments come back. The box is ours.
Your comments are still here. Every one of them.
Twelve years of BeachGrit comments came across from Disqus. Connect and we will show you how many are yours. We get your username, nothing else.
Connect Disqus to reveal.
It’s way easier to get fucked at sunset: “Oh wow, looks nice, offshore, 8 foot Hawaiian; I can do this.” Next thing you know you’re gettting ragdolled 20 yards under water, hoping to survive the day. For pipe, you know exactly what you’re getting into: a gnarly crowd, a super fast, super steep, super powerful ledge – you expect to get fucked, and are surprised when you don’t.
It’s shocking just making down the face.
Mastering Sunset v’s Mastering a Wave-pool….where will pro surfing end up ?
It’s in the hands of the youn’uns, i wonder what their thoughts are?
A good friend and I paddled out on what was our virgin sesh at real 8-10 ft, West Peak glory. Both of us on brand new 6’10 Bradshaws that Ken had just entrusted us with. It wasn’t 15 minuets in when my buddy got caught inside on a solid 10’ bomb. Bless his heart, he tried to duck dive it basically right at lip impact. I think remembering Ken warning us to never bail.
I tried to track him after what seemed like 2 minutes until he finally popped up, holding onto about 3 ft of Bradshaw. I happened to grovel into a small one and found my buddy resting in the channel. I asked if he was ok and he said “I’m fine, but Ken is going to kill me”
Mentioned your new book to someone the other day, they responded “Isn’t he dead?”
Wiiiipeouuuuuuuuttt!
And while we’re at it…if you survive the swim in from the depths of Sunset you still risk getting washed up on to the Kam Highway and run over by a mini-van full of Haloes eating Ted’s chocolate haupia pies.
However…at Pipe the worst that would happen is that you get washed into one of the Volcom Houses or JOB’s brand spankin’ new living room.
I can assure you…the occupants of all three residences are MUCH easier on the eyes than the mini van full of Haoles.
Ill say people prefer to be beaten at pipe only to be seen by the crowd, drowning a mile out the sea unnoticed has no glamour
Pipeline will break your leg, Sunset will break your spirit.
But they’re both fun so fuck it!
After surfing legitimate 8′-10′ foot Sunset, I still after all these years say it was the heaviest thing I’ve ever done. Such a large playing field, the shifting peaks, .. those heroes that dedicated their lives to learning its intricacies are the guys I look up to..(and that was Hawaiian scale in 1986, it’s been diminished in the ensuing years, thanks Surfline)
ha I think it is only diminished in the eyes of people who will never surf it.
Oh wait you meant wave scale. I don’t even know what to call waves any more. Last surf I had at Sunset Beach was in late Jan this year. It was what I’d once have called 12′ plus, out of the NNW. One other guy out, mid afternoon, light winds. The other guy went in. I kept looking at waves in between catching them, and thinking, “how big is this really?” 25′-plus “faces”? Surfing has always been hard to describe but weirdly it seems as if it’s getting even harder with time.
You got it.. 25 foot faces and once I went in to the car park, a guy came up to ask for a light for his joint… Jim Lolley.. he said watch my brother Mike, he’s ripping … I asked , how big is it out there? 5 feet was the reply
And to add the capper to the story, that session I was surfing the north peak.. the only other two guys on it were Occy and your little brother… they looked at me like “who the fuck are you?”… indelible memory, go to the grave with it!
You should never ask how big it is out there… 😉
yr right….. anywhere for that matter….
My mom surfed big Sunset in the 60’s. Barry Kanaiaupuni told her one of her waves was legit 12 foot. She said getting under some of the sets felt like swimming half a swimming pool. The board she rode was shaped by Sam Hawk’s older brother. We still have it today. She said the boys wouldn’t let you paddle out in those days unless they knew you could handle your shit.
Wow! Your mom was part of a very small elite crew then. Good on her!
Yeah it kind of blows my mind when I think about it. No Jet Skis, no leashes, maybe one or two cameras…she would have been about 18 years old too.
Sunset would leave you with a fully intact, pretty blue corpse while Pipeline might just scrape your nose and ears off on the reef. Vanity wins!
I’ll take either over big Hanalei.
I’ve surfed all three and HBay is fucking frightening.
I was there a few years ago when that charger passed away, RIP, (I didn’t surf that day); even though the waves were as perfect as it gets, it was insane: massive, steep, super shallow, super long, super heavy freight trains STACKED to the horizon. I’ve never seen anything like it – in person or on film. It was incredible; the largest display of wave power I’ve ever seen. The amount of water being displaced that day dwarfed big sunset or big pipe. It was non-stop monstering. Ha, sorry for the long description; the memory is flooding back.
Yeah, the crowd just thins the heavier it gets. I was always able to at least attempt waves beyond my abilities on the north shore, but big Hanalei just hands your ass to you and says “not you”. The guys who surf it don’t fall much.
This is why i will only surf pools now. I will be sure to read pool rules and not bomb dive. If i do happen to fall Bridget & Brad the pool ‘lifesavers’ will blow their whistle and someone will toss me a flotation ring to which i will flail over to and float to the mini bar, be handed a nice fluffy towel, and regal all there with my watermanly tale to which they will oh and ahhh and take me to one of the glampervans to bed me on silky sheets made of organic kale.
Be a real man and wear your Water Wings.
Except 100% you would drown here and no Bridget and Brad would save ya
http://travel.smart-guide.n…
Please consider that Bridget and Brad may be from the local Lemoore surrounds and may not be able to swim out to save you until the turbulence has diminished. At current rates, that is about two minutes.
What about horsies?
“And there you have it. A little something to think about as you watch the action either today or tomorrow.”
Yeah, right, like I’m going to debase myself and watch a ‘QS event…
Clearly you don’t have a 9-ish to 5-ish desk job where any distraction is welcomed like the second coming.
Never sure if being busted while watching a surfing comp or porn is the less demeaning.
“Surfing webcasts….just like porn but without the computer viruses!”
Oh, their algoritms are hard at work.
Uh…this is a family fucking website, my friend.
Take your “algorithm” filth elsewhere.
I do and still, ‘QS events are overwhelmingly garbage. More likely to be entertained just staring into my own belly button. I’d rather watch an ADS free surf video.
You must be fun at parties! I kid, I kid. I don’t watch any of the QS’ other than Hawaii (the Volcom Pipe Pro included). In all honesty it’s mostly for the scenery and mostly hoping to catch a glimpse of an old hang out or an old acquaintance (see my friend whose picture appeared in these hallowed pages last week).
Let’s see this belly button 😉
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
This shits on an ADS edit
Hehe belly buttons ARE fun to watch though.
After a wipeout at Sunset you have to swim like a hundred miles to safety and Freddy P’s house (unless it falls in the water, that is) so I’d say you’re better off wiping out at Pipe.
Plus the peanuts gallery at Pipe is always bigger and at least one idiot in the crowd (who are you people looking at???) knows basic first aid and CPR.
I’ve never surfed either place and totally disagree.
I’ve never surfed either but been on the beach at both. People coming in from lost/broken boards at Sunset are exhausted. There’s a reason why board caddies at Sunset take a swim fin or two with them when they go out.
It seems like two totally different risks, though, right? Sunset looks like you’d totally drown if something went wrong. It also looks like a really difficult lineup to read. Pipe, easier to read, but easier to get totally broken there — head, back, assorted vital bones.
A friend surfed Sunset and she said it was the scariest thing she’s ever done — and she’s not shy about big surf.
Idk, never been there, would love to go someday.
I have no business in the water at either spot so I only go on what I’ve seen. To me…it’s like debating death by electric chair or firing squad. Both suck but one is only slightly less painful and we’re trying to figure which one it is.
ha ha yeah pretty much 😀
I have never even been on the North Shore, and not outside the Honolulu Airport in 40 years. And yet I raise your “stood on the beach” by a “read something on the internet.” And still totally disagree.
Hope being so wrong doesn’t make you feel sad. It’s just that I’m right about a zillion things that I have absolutely zero experience with. Gay sex for example: I’d be amazingly great at, it and yet have never had more than a peripheral and unintentional sidelong cock-sighting in the gym locker room.
So either you are saying that I’m terrible at gay sex, or you’re admitting Pipe wipeouts are heavier. Which is it? #SocraticDialogue
Is this the “I’m not gay but my boyfriend is” conundrum?
My boyfriend is totally straight too! Really lets the air out of the romance balloon 🙁
Now you’re going to make me guess which one of you is the Bottom!
(That completely made me laugh…so thank you!)
This is how cults start. And conspiracy theories.
That one time I was going to surf Pipe, my knee was hurting. Then the one chance I got to surf Sunset, my bung shoulder started playing up.
Probably saved your bung a whole lot of clenching.