The Hurley Pro Sunset Beach is just around the corner. It’s a fantastic wave, a wave that’s steeped in surfing history, and if the wave delivers, it’s one of the most challenging on tour.
It’s one of the most famous waves on the North Shore of Oahu, and up until sometime in the mid-’80s, it was generally considered as the ultimate wave to test your mettle. Watching CT competitors surf it can be a little misleading, though. It is far from easy to surf at size, despite the fact that it’s not as hollow or shallow as a wave like Pipeline, which is about a mile east on the Kam Highway.
On a big northwest swell, the best section of the reef come to life. Sunset Point and the West Bowl will turn on, if there’s too much west in it, Kauai tends to block the brunt of things. It serves up deep ocean waves barreling out of the North Pacific, but it’s not just the size and weight of the wave that makes it so difficult. Even someone like Kelly Slater has famously said that he’s not Sunset’s biggest fan.
“Look, I don’t love Sunset,” he said in a post-heat interview in 2022. “I don’t like the wave. I don’t like the crowd out here. Everyone’s on a 10-foot board. I don’t respect the wave and it doesn’t respect me back. Unless I change, it’s not going to change.”
For those who have learned to surf in harmony with Sunset, however, it’s one of the best waves in the world. The peaks are shifty, the current is fierce, the lip is as heavy as they come, and when the trade winds are blowing, Sunset is a particularly difficult place to catch a wave. Being in the right spot at the right time is key at Sunset, and figuring that out is a skill only learned by putting in time and enduring some horrible beatdowns.
Some of the greats who’ve stamped their name in Sunset’s history books include Michael Ho, Jeff Hakman, Ian Cairns, Mark Richards, Hans Hedemann, Tom Carroll, and of course Sunny Garcia.
The video you see above is courtesy of Surfers of Hawaii. Shot on February 9, it features a whole pile of CT surfers trying to get their feet in as much wax as possible before the event kicks off. It was about as good as it gets there, with 8-10 foot sets and straight offshore winds. Fingers are crossed that similar conditions grace the Hurley Pro Sunset Beach.
