“That was heavy,” says Nathan Florence.
A couple of days back, Teahupoo was big, skis and boats everywhere, drivers’ faces wet with spray and sweat as they manoeuvred photographers into position to shoot the wave’s extravagant barrel in a game of potentially fatal choreography.
Pretty rare for a boat to go over, or lose a passenger, especially in the hands of the experienced drivers who work the two-lever steering wheels, forever treading an ultra-fine line between deep water and the slightest incline of reef that’ll drag ‘em back into the hole.
In the incident below, Ted Grambeau, possibly the best, definitely the sweetest, surf photographer ever to draw breath, and Chris Bryan, the high-def video gun for hire, for whom the phone tolls every time a studio wants the finest in surf-cinematic vision, are tossed from their vessel, along with their lunch baguette, only seconds after recording an epic ride.
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The Tahitian driver is catlike in a scenario that would have most leaving wet web stains on the front of their red bunny pyjamas.
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The Captain was pretty shit could see that coming from a way off he could have avoided it.
So who was the F’tard on the ski that Check Stopped the taxi boat by shooting across the bow? https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
thats what I thought too. He got cut off by a jet ski. Correction, an oblivious jet ski.
How long before someone gets spat out of the wave of their life, straight into the side of a boat? Too fucken close.
Didn’t one of those Hobgoods run into a ski coming out of a barrel in the Mid 2000s during a contest
What’s the deal with those lever driven boats ? Vs. a standard wheel
Beach Grit writing real news articles now???
meanwhile in SB, Cali…where climate change is always trending…and there hasn’t been any reported swells since 1969…
https://keyt.b-cdn.net/2022…
’83 blew the doors off 1969.
Try to keep up, it’s been nearly 40 years.
1992, 1997, 2005 all beat ’69 Boomer.
car down my street has a ‘Hippe’ license plate…
refresh sound track after watching this over & over & over again…then again, Whipped Cream may also work! or Flight of the Conchords…
Which brand was the wipe? It was not a duty free transaction.
If that doesn’t make Surfline’s wave of the day I will be very disapointed.
Anything for the ‘gram!
Poor old mate, flipped over and then out, fat , bald and wet
It’s not often that one is privileged to see a Tahitian boat captain’s pride becoming so erect and glistening in the mid-day sun.
I have been waiting a long time to see a serious incident out there. Dam. This was close though.
Looks like someone hanging off the back gets sucked over the falls?
‘WHEEEEEEEE!!!!
Indeed.
Where is Darren Hanley when you need him?
DH would go
he must have shot this?
I’ve gotta say, I expected “…along with their lunch baguette…” to be typical Riellyian prose, but no: so literal!
Like a cat after 12 bowls of Kava
Yup, nobody cares.
I would have lost my lunch too!