Surfpolitik Maverick's Invitational: The XXL swell that shrunk in the wash

In: Surfpolitik by Stu Nettle 40 Comments Mon 21st Jan '13

Tags:

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

Veteran North Shore surfers have a rule of thumb when it comes to predicting wave size: storms generated in the North Pacific have to cross the International Date Line to be considered genuine XXL size - that is, at least 25 foot. And that's for waves breaking in Hawaii. On the US mainland any storm that doesn't cross the date line has to send its swell a further 4,600 kilometres suffering swell decay on the way and also dealing with the size reducing factor of the continental shelf.

Knowing this information it's a wonder the organisers of the Mavericks Invitational ever pushed the green light to the competition that ran today. But that's what happened following a huge storm that lit up the western Pacific last week unleashing all its energy west of the date line. When news that the swell would meet dodgy local winds in Hawaii, stymying the Eddie Aikau and Jaws Red Bull event, the Maverick's organisers gave notice to competitors who began making the last-minute trip to northern California from wherever on the globe they were.

US swell forecaster, Surfline, said the waves would be 15-25 feet faces with the odd 30 feet face. In terms of straight wave height that's 8-12 feet spiced with a 15 footer every 45 minutes or so. The forecast was almost spot on and if you tuned into the webcast that's exactly what you saw.

Is that 'big' enough for a big wave competition?

During the finals Mavericks looked like my local big wave spot, Queenscliff Bombora, during high tide on a dropping swell. A Swellnet commenter asked why the competitors were doing "the Huntington Hop," on their ten foot boards, bouncing up and down to connect the barely-capping outside reef with the inside ledge. The uncomfortable truth was they were pulling into the inside ledge because that was the only place where there was a modicum of danger, the very aspect that big wave competitions depend upon.

We can speculate why the green light was given for such an underwhelming swell: the comp didn't run last year so they were desperate to keep momentum; they had a big name sponsor they needed to keep happy; they pre-sold tickets to a Mavericks festival and need the event to run.

What it came down to was the bemusing spectacle of hardened big wave surfers, who train so they can survive situations other people can't, bounce their guns like it was a points-for manoeuvre system or that they were getting judged for length of ride. Make no mistake, if Kelly Slater was allowed to surf in todays Mavericks Invitational he would've taken a 5'11" out.

Postscript: Peter Mel was named the winner of today's competition, with Alex Martens second and Greg Long third. The finalists all decided to split the winnings and take home an equal amount.

Post-postscript: Two hours after the final scores were read out, and an hour after this story went live, the judges announed that they'd got it wrong. Alex Martens went from second to fourth with Zach Wormhoudt taking second place.

Loading Comments