Pipeline
Get ready for another hot season!
Today is President's Day and you're most likely lazing around at home trying not to freeze (if you're in the northeast). So why not watch the new Vans surf movie, 6 Weeks Of Aloha? It documents in 26-minutes what happened this winter when the world's best surfers converged on one stretch of beach for 6 weeks for the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing on the North Shore of Oahu. We'll give you a hint: lots of ripping went down.
Pipeline is one of the most powerful waves in the world. This is a fact. But sometimes it's hard to really gauge just how powerful. Well how about spleen-rupturing powerful?
Pro surfer Torrey Meister had the unfortunate luck to display this for everyone on a a Backdoor Pipeline wave earlier this winter. Getting rocked pretty hard, the wave exploded Meister's spleen and he had to surgery to repair everything. The ocean will certainly humble you, and take pieces of you with it as well.
Check out the Instagram video below, and good to know that Torrey is getting all healed up.
It was only a few years back when Backdoor Pipeline was a wave that most people shyed away from being highly-progressive at. But these days, what with John John Florence landing backflips there, it seems like it's almost treated like any other playful wave (though we all know that's not the case).
Jamie O'Brien is the master of the board transfer, especially when it comes to soft top surfboards. So he took his soft top transfer skills to Pipeline yet again, this time tackling Backdoor. The skill and precision he possesses to do this is totally unfathomable—all while holding a GoPro in his mouth. Factor in the danger of the wave (albeit on a smallish day) and it's pretty nuts.
What do you think of this board transfer? Tell us in the Comments.
Yes, surfers Flynn Novak and Gabriel Medina have landed backflips at Rocky Point and Off The Wall before, respectively. But at treacherous Backdoor Pipeline? That feat belongs to one North Shore god by the name of John John Florence.
A video was posted earlier this week of John John landing a completed tweaked-out frontside rodeo flip (or backflip), but it was quickly taken off the Internet because the footage is set to be in an upcoming part of his. But former Pipe Master Jake "The Snake" Paterson caught the feat as well and posted it on Instagram for all to enjoy.
Watch it below, over and over again, and be amazed. Where do you think this ranks among the great surf airs of our time?
Hold your breath...
Kelly Slater's perfect 10 at 2014's Volcom Pipe Pro was some of the best drone footage captured at Pipeline to date. This recent drone footage from above at Pipe though definitely gives that a run for its money. Jamie O'Brien (on a regular board and a soft top), John John Florence, Mason Ho, and more tackle good Pipeline and the above angle (with some epic lighting) makes it look like a video game.
What do you think of this drone footage? Tell us in the Comments.
Check out this nerve wracking footage of surfers being rescued from a gnarly swell at Pipe
Will it be Kelly Slater, Mick Fanning, or Gabriel Medina?