Alright, so odds are you know exactly which wave we are talking about here. The wave that won the July edition of the 2018 Striped Horse Challenge it was a thing of beauty, honestly. But what many of you didn’t see was everything that went into scoring that screamer. The Striped Horse Challenge 2018 has seen some moments of pure surfing magic, one of those moments as mentioned before was captured by Matt Kleynhans and Adrian Charles. So Twiggy got in touch and let us learn a little bit more about that oh so glorious wave and the events leading up to it.
(Zag) How do you guys keep a mission like this on the down low, I mean everyone and their auntie seems to be getting into big wave surfing?
(Twiggy) There are a bunch of big wave guys now for sure but when it’s a good swell for an area it’s actually difficult to get guys to try something different. We asked a few surfers and some photographers to join us and they all said they would rather stay at spots they were guaranteed to score rather than taking a chance on something new.
In hindsight, those guys must all be kicking themselves. You must have been eyeing out this wave for quite some time?
We’ve been surfing it on and off for a few years and have had it pretty good in the past and always hoped that we would see a day like this out there. I never imagined it could get this big and this good.
So the wave itself was mental, and I’m sure everyone who saw it took notice of that offshore. Was it challenging?
The wind was crazy, offshore is a tough wind to surf when the swell is big and it was doing 30 knots straight offshore. Besides that it was a long period in the 20-second range so the swells were coming in fast against the wind, making for some pretty crazy wipeouts!
Equipment was important that day. We were swapping out on a 9’0 (68 L) Twig Charger model. Its a mid-range gun and its all about keeping volume in the board for paddling into larger waves, but having a shorter length board once on the wave to maximize barrel riding ability. The board worked amazingly even with all the wind and how fast the waves where moving. A good big wave barrel board feels like an extension of yourself and it reacts to what you are thinking while on the wave….this one was top class.
The highlight of the day?
The last wave on the video was towards the end of the session, we had a bunch of waves throughout the day (we surfed from 8 am to 4 pm) but not the ONE.
At around 3 pm this wave came through and I was in a perfect position and it let me in fairly easily considering all the wind and how big it was. Then it doubled up as it hit the slab and this huge perfect barrel ran off at a speed where I needed to go at maximum velocity while doing these big rollercoaster pumps for almost 10 seconds. On two different occasions, the foam ball got under me and I thought it was over and I had to get high and tight at the end to make it.
One of those I’m fucked, I made it, I’m fucked, I made it, I’m fucked, I made it waves. A wave that we live for and one of the rides of my life for sure!