I have no idea how anybody surives tehupoo, it is so heavy and it breaks in just a few feet over a coral reef and it is so heavy. much respect for anybody with the cojones to ride that wave
I went to F.P. for our honeymoon. All of the waves break about a half mile out on the reef.. I cut up my feet just walking over the reef let alone getting dragged over it. Much respect to all of the warriors that surf Teahupoo on anything over 10'.
You can see he is crunching the numbers and feeling concerned at the end of the vid. It's always scary to be ragdolled by a big wave and wonder if there will be an out. if you add reef and such huge volumes of water it's a lottery. If the human body didn't have some bouncy there would be people getting toasted day in and day out. Kudos for going.
Yes, he has way bigger balls than any of us commenting on this video. He charges anything. Btw, I was waiting for a comment like yours for four months!!!
How do you avoid hitting the reef especially in super shallow water. I am from Cali all sand beaches so Ive never experienced it or probably dont want to.lol
+marcuelcajon Apparently what ive heard is that the lip is so heavy that bounces off the reef on the bottom and creates some kind of counter to the actual wave when it comes back up. But yea not for me hah
+YadidaOo Correct. Although I would not have the balls to surf it this big, I've heard the same. The amount of water being thrown from the lip instantly fills the reef area, almost back to "sea level". Not to mention the speed of this wave is 10 times faster than "normal" breaks. Id say, aslong as you are not right under the lip when it breaks, you'll be safe from the reef.
@asaw1994 you contort your body and try to swim where up is. i dont surf waves like this but i have surfed where the reef is a foot under your fin and the waves are six foot average, and ive wiped out, first time i got a nice scratch along my back, but you learn to just move up and stay up
of course not, i was streching it a "bit too far" lol (in this case streching is the correct word ;) ) Well you know that feeling being pulled by your board....
newts8 I know this is old, but waves height is measured from sea level. So when they say 15 foot that's measured from the back and on buoys when the wave is in a natural form. When it starts to break, the front of the wave is actually almost 2x the height of what the buoys read and what is forecasted. That's because the front of the wave is where the trough. Which is where the water level actually drops below sea level. So it makes the face of the wave a lot bigger than what the swell that is measured. I learned this early on surfing when the waves were 5-6ft. I'm thinking oh that's not that big. Get out to the beach and paddling out, seeing that first set roll in like oh shit this is a lot bigger than I thought.
yeh, tore a ligament in my leg purely from the turbulence in a wave, and it was barely head high. I heard at cylops, people have had their spine broken with the weight of the water (1 cubic meter weighs a ton, so there are many tons of water pounding this poor guy)
@TrySomeCrack Mark Healy is a Kook, but he has surfed bigger waves than any of us on this site has, he even swims with sharks! No need to make fun of a fellow surfer, have respect to your own kin
It#s not about ability to hold your breath at teahupoo, it's all about getting hit with force or hitting the reef. People have had their faces torn off from that reef.
@TrySomeCrack kook? you think hes never been in the ocean? Have some respect. YOU WOULD NEVER GO OUT IN TEAHUPOO! especially if you think a 6ft set hurts.... buy a surfboard silly
