The Eddie 2016 At Epic Waimea Bay The Biggest The Greatest 

04:01, 06:42, 07:08, 10:08, 11:40, 12:38

Watching this as I mentally get jacked up for this morning! THE EDDIE IS ON!!! I so very much wish I could be there today - in person. This is an extremely special event. I can hardly wait! This 2023 version may be monumental. Hanna Pa ‘a!!

Can't believe they are paddling to catch those beasts, absolutely incredible. Some serious wipeouts in there. And I never realised Kelly Slater was a big wave rider as well, that guy is unreal. He is a true legend and still ripping it up even at his age, just insane. And Clyde Aikau WOW, what an inspiration. I'm 47 so if I can surf at his age I'll be very very happy, but it won't be beasts like this.

In 1978 we were on our honeymoon to Hawaii. You see all those people standing at the top of the beach in the video? There's the road behind them and then there is a lagoon. See the people standing along the side of the road to the left? Well picture this. We were actually at the tip of the headland further along to the left. Its about 60' above the water. It started out like in this video but then this monster arrived. Its crest was breaking above where we were standing. It rose up into almost a verticle wall and wrapped around the headland, broke and took out all the people on the beach and along the road, and white water about 20' thick thundered over the lagoon taking all the people standing there plus a few cars. Then it hit the far rock wall and the backwash was almost as big. There were people all in the water and then I guess maybe 50 people were sucked back down the beach with the backwash and undertow. Now I was only 27 at the time. About 15 minutes later this combi comes up the road and all these older narly guys got out, got these 12' boards off the roof, climbed down the rocks and paddled out. We all just stood there getting a masterclass of big wave riding...no, foot straps, wetsuits, bouyancy vests, jetski rescue...nothing. It was the biggest beach break I have seen in all my life.

Best camera angle yet Thanks

having lived on Maui from `89 untill `93....( this is before pe`ahi was discovered ) we all heard about this Great Contest on Oahu..Thé Eddie Invitational...in Honour of one of the truly greatests ever....Eddie Aikau! .the best EVER surf contest......now 23 years on...I sat here in Holland ( my homecountry ) this past february.....watching on-line this unreal contest......and this is LIVE too! ( back then there was NO internet guys!) ..and that was feb 2016....a night I will never EVER forget....this is a fabulous recap....THNX SOOO MUCH skystudiohawaii for bringing us all worldwide this unreal footage from the One and ONLY....the Eddie Aikau Memorial!!! If you get too scared.....if the beach is shiffering already.....and the Breaks are realy that scary ; EDDIE would GO...... Maui ; NO ka Oi!!!!

@ 5:43min or so the 5 jet skis all coming into the beach at once was from a HUGE set that CHASED them ALL in--it was very close and we were all holding our breath that they'd make it in! another unsung was Wakita, from Japan, who got ANNIHILATED over and over and kept going...got a huge round of applause on the beach.

It was 1978 and we were on our honeymoon. Standing on the western headland which is 50' high, these swells were wrapping around into Waimea Bay way above our head height. The white water was going up the beach, accross the road and into the lagoon behind, and was 10' thick. Cars, people, mobile homes...everything was wiped off the road and dumped inland. So who trotted down to the rocks below with an 11" narrow gun. Mark Richards with a big grin for everyone. He paddled out somehow. No jetskis in those days. He stayed out for two hours and showed his fearlessness. He said the big sets were about 60'.

I will never forget the time I went body surfing at wamea bay. The waves were not nearly as big as this but at 110 pounds I had one heck of a time getting up and out of the wave before it crashed down on me.

Seeing this on video is amazing but being there live was ridiculous. The crowd went nuts at sunrise when the announcement of "the eddie is on" rang over waimea bay. The surf fans went nuts went Uncle Clyde Aikau paddled out. Being there live to see JJF, Kelly Slater and Sunny Garcia was fantastic.

Nice video with a great soundtrack! No way would I ever surf that stuff!

the waves and the wipeouts are amazing.

I camped in my car with my Gf n puppy that day, it was madness. The adrenaline was pumping watching the pros out in that condition! 🤙🏽❤️

Great video ... Best ride IMO ... Ros-Clarke Jones 10:10 ... I used to live between Waimea & Sunset

Ok,i'm only half way through this vid but have to comment now ! lol... This is insane!!! so many guys getting hammered,like destroyed and they keep going back for more,2 thumbs up,some big balls in that line up,hows the guy whose board came down nose first like a javelin and missed his head by an inch,f me,great vid mate...

Eddie lives. Respect!

John John may have won the event but Eddie's brother 66 year-old Clyde Aikau was the biggest hero of the day soldiering on with several injuries and winning the hearts of the crowd.

Just Epic!!! There Is Just One BAY!!! CLASS...IC!!!

To the surfers and pilots of yesteryear, i salute you. 🤙

Great vid...great music. I was memorized! So much respect for these great athletes!

11:40 just killing it

Great video. Better than being there in person and you summarized 4-8 hours into 16 minutes.

Danilo Couto's ride was fantastic. Rough conditions.

Bloody hell, some got really pounded. Makes me more thankful to the "stable-leash-gods" ;)

Emily Ashima WOW！！！！！Awesome movie！！！！！ Thank you

3:50 That was a long free fall.

This Eddie was really a good one!!! After 2009 which it ran, then 2016 was just HUGE!!! I was filming it, and there were sets nearly closing out the bay! I was born and raised in Hawaii and we had a beach house right at Pipeline/ Ehukai! I was born in 1960 and surfing, especially the country was what I focused my life on, especially surfing pipe and otw!!! Yeah this was just insane with the jet ski's all racing out to get over the ones that were nearly closing out the whole bay! Still, December 1969 was the biggest I have ever seen it !!! I was 8 or 9 years old and it was massive!! Houses destroyed including our beach house and Kaena point had huge lefts that were the biggest I ever saw the waves get!!! Gregg Noll went out to makaha and road a huge wave. It was covered in Surfer magazine and the water was washing across the highway all over and it was historic!!!! This was back when it was so awesome living out there !! Just sugar cane fields everywhere and no crowds!!!! I'm truly blessed to have grown up surfing out in the country back when it was hippies and girls in crotche bikinis or just top less or nude!!!! It was just the best and being a kid growing up out there and living in Hawaii my entire life surfing was so great especially in the 70's!!!! It will never ever be like that again unfortunately but I was surfing Pipeline with only a small group of surfers who could Really surf it well and we got all the waves we could catch!!!! Used to love hanging out with Eddie Aikau at the Waimea lifeguard tower and talking to him. He was a Hawaiian icon if surfing like Duke Kahanamoku who my Dad grew up surfing with!!! No ka oi Aloha D.L.

That is just such a legendary spot I mean look at all that water damn those guys are properly up there you gotta have some balls.

Jamie Mitchel due to his wipeouts and survival must be the toughest guy on earth :D I also heard a classic comment from a surfer from a previous big swell out at Waimea Bay. After a free surf in 35foot Waimea ( closing out )he was asked "what was it like out there? " He shrugged and said "It's like going to Gaol for something you didn't do! "

great tunes

Thanks skystudiohawaii!! Awesome work!

wow Kevin I finally got it to play for my.. AWesome ~ Aloha from Pahoa & Mahalo

Sports coverage on TV sucks anymore. I remember when surfing championships were on National TV now I can't ever find them on. I visited this beach as a kid nice to see it again.

Dig that tripping music.

RESPECT ! Total Knar !

So, I'm going through the comments and I have not read one comment about Tom Carrol. If it is the same "Tommy" Carrol I'm thinking of, he was one of the best surfers in the mid to late 1980s. He must be in his late 50s, if not early 60s. If it was him, I was shocked to see him out there.

Finally got to see in person, of this epic beach. Visited it yesterday. I don't know how they got 25K spectators on that stretch of sand

One more for Eddie 🤙

Man!! At 1:26. He still had wave left to go!!!! I just wanted to jump into my computer screen and push the accelerator on the front of his board, drop back down into that.

Fantastic

thank to upload this content

uncle clyde is a fucking beast

4:15 - Imagine the pull on the leash !!

"They call me Eddie Aikau the big wave man of Hawaii." I used to sing that in 4-5 foot swell. (not in Hawaii).

Eddie, big wave hawaiian surfer legend with peace in his pu'uwai. , i get .choke aloha for Eddie n his ohana no fear kauai

Great video! Great Waves, Great Surfing, Great music, Great Photography, Who could ask for anything more? Like how that guy at 8:00 recovered 3 times! That was great!

I body surfed all my life on the Jersey shore, some up around 16-20 feet at Ocean Beach (Awesome day). In the late 70's the Navy sent me to Barber's Point, HI. I immediately sought out some body surfing at Sandy Beach. Was in a group, until after one wipeout I wasn't, and couldn't get back...caught in rip..."You wear no fins Brah...got to wear fins Brah.." They kept me from going through the Blowhole, which was where I was headed. Then I tried an 8 foot shore break at Waimea, and dove under a wave I was too far away from, and some guy who was on the wave piledrove me to the bottom...I thought my back was broken and had to crawl out of the surf.... Pacific waves are TOTALLY different animals, and unbelievably dangerous...I was done bodying in HI...but still had a good time..spent 1 1/2 years camped out on Waimanalo Beach...

Eddie had pu'uwai , he was.a pono hawaiian bigvwavev ridder. aloha to Eddie no fear .aloha from kauai

I remember this contest as having enormous waves. Bigger than the average waimea waves. But didn't see any of them in this video.

Waimea is Waimea!

Nah. Tame. 1978. We arrived and we knew it was big becuase the white water was washing over the road into the lagoon. When we could we drove across and up and around to the point which is 40-50' above the water. The swell was wrapping around the point as a slight angle to the beach and there was a strong offshore wind. These swells were rising up to the height of where we were standing. The younger guys were all shaking their heads. Then thses older guys arrived grinning from ear to ear and unstrapped these thin 10' guns and gave us a demo of big wave surfing. No straps, no tow in, you have to go in off the rocks around the point and paddle around. It was awesome. And Mark Richards was with them.

I watched this competition live in 1989 and the waves were bigger then this.

3:49 this is going to haunt my dreams tonight..

that's me on my medium-big board - did not need any Jet-Ski, but thanks

Do they use leashes in huge stuff like his? Or would it risk tearing muscles/ligaments?

Shit, this contest should've paid $10,000,000 with conditions like that...

omg, 8:20 had some kinda *spit, lol 😎

All you kids out there want to see a perfect "athletic stance"? The one your coaches tell you to get into? The one that'll prepare you for _whatever_ is coming your way... Well then take a look at Mr. Dave Wassel's ride @ 10:00

epic vid mahalo

Epic Kelley Slater wipeout @ 4:46

2:23 the poor surfer who went over the falls backwards while paddling forward. He's to the right of center wave.

looks like the ski;s have their work cut out for them... saving mass amounts of lives that day...

I love Kelly but that drop in at 3:00 wrecked the guy on the inside. I would have been so pissed if that was me.

Lapo Coutinho. I was watching your Eddie Aikau contest video and became very happy when i saw it is me on the first wave, on the freesurf before the contest! you think there is a chance i can get the original footage ? Sorry Lapo can’t find that clip anywhere. If I do find it I will send it. Much turmoil here right now as we are in the middle of relocating Sky Studio Hawaii.

I washed the Eddie in the late 90's that had larger waves than this. SO large in fact that they closed Haleiwa harbor. So the surfers used helicopters to get out to the waves

Can you see the surfers from the beach? I have always wanted to go to Hawaii in the winter to see the big waves.

Greg should packed a parachute

Were there two(or more) swells in the water at the time? It looks wonky and unruly for offshore winds

how the fuk did kelly not win that ???? he was the only one that got barrelled ?

Considering 60 foot swell is required, these waves look smaller than expected, no?

First of all many thanks to skistudiohawaii for this great footage! Wonderful relive and see these brave watermen in action... .. some respectful question/requests: i) sound: would you not consider putting up a version without any music.. or just minimal music here and there - and not rock guitar ( which is on so many surf movie sound tracks that it becomes a kind of emotionally dead blanket on the action and so repetitive to listen to. It just tints everything the same like a really boring filter.. does anyone agree? The sound of just the live ocean and the atmosphere of the crowd would be so much more nourishing to listen to ... and it would honour you photographers/film makers .. like bringing your persistence and hard work catching all the rides.. talk about the troubles and blessings of the day ii) editing: could you not cut the rides so that you see more of the actually finish.. the surfer falling off.. pulling out over the top and then a few moments of him paddling, maybe hold the camera on the wipeout until the rider surfaces or is rescued? iii) voiceover: I appreciate very much that you identify the riders with their names where you can - would it not be possible to contact them afterwards, even over skype or by phone ( if they have flown to different countries) and let them see their ride(s) and make a short commentary about that particular ride - what is was like staying under the broiling water etc.. speak to a few people.. you could then over lay a bit of commentary edited over the actual rides or in the aftermath of the ride while the surfer is recovering paddling out.. i * * * This would enhance the already great work you have done - and give it identity and a completely different vibe to the film. You would have a HIT on your hands .. because no one else has done this...

Why does Kelly Slater always get tubed, even at massive wiamea!! ??!!

no footage of Sunny?

What is the music and the drone ? 👍👌

No mommy and daddy to help you out there. Such a mean wave.

no way bells is bigger than waimea bro

Got to go

When you hear those car horns honking...

Who plays this music and what is this song Any replies are really appreciated...

slater barrel ftw 11:41

JOB got annihilated by the lip. The jet skis take away a little of the prestige of the Eddie Aikau Invitational.

Kelly Slater looked more consistent than any other surfer out there

Man one guy ate foam bad. At least a few min

At 11:43, are those people just in that water bobbing in the waves? Or are the cameramen? And how do the jet skis not get knocked over?? So many questions! I'm going to have to go see this for myself soon!!

What music is this?

What a bumpy shit-show! Kudos for even trying to surf that stuff

Surf hero's.....I saw it once but it was flat...

Funny thing about this is that if yhr Eddie wasn't on there would of been 200 local punters charging this thing harder than these guys just too get a wave in the crowd.

so nonbody wears a leash in these type of conditions? when you lose your board? half hour swim?

This is real surfing, not tow in shit. Good music too

why is it ok to drop in on each other

Florence won, but I don't see anything by him that really stands out in this video?

Everything about this is too knarley!

As soon as you see the board fluttering you know the guy is probably going to get smoked.

77 smirnoff was bigger

Would be better if they actually pulled into the barrels.

6:26 And Yes the Silly Hawaiian Local WaterMan damn well knows this is extremely dangerous but they do it anyways...! Mabe it is the standard on how to get the Jet Skies back out proficiently as fast as possible ? Epic . Dealing with Jet Skies in Waimea shorebreak is way more dangerous then surfing this shit

it should be called wipeout bay

Not near the biggest Waimea can offer. But great day nonetheless

Waimea has lost it mystique now you have breaks like Teahupoo, Jaws and Cloud Break. Maybe in the long board days Waimea was the challenge.