Tidal bores may very well be one of the least-explored frontiers of surfing, perfect for weird-wave aficionado Dylan Graves to set a new world record, seemingly by accident.
Formed on rivers near the coast, tidal bores occur when a flood tide hits the outgoing river water, with the tidal bore traveling up the river against the direction of the current. And they can stretch for miles. In fact, the current world record for longest wave ever surfed is held by Steve King: 9.25 miles on a tidal bore up the Severn River in Great Britain. In the inaugural season of the wildly popular Weird Waves, Dylan Graves went to England and surfed the Severn Bore himself. And recently, Dylan rode another, decidedly spicier, tidal bore in Indonesia known localy as “Bono” and worldwide as the “Seven Ghosts,” of course the spot that was part of the Rip Curl Search more than a decade ago.
The name “Seven Ghosts” comes from the so-called tidal whelps, secondary waves that follow the main tidal front, of which, surprise surprise, there are seven. Dylan caught it on a good day, with the wave reaching head-high at times, and shredded the heck outta it. “For now I have uploaded this ride in it’s entirety,” Dylan notes in the video description, “because I’m going to cut it down in the edit and it was one of the funnest and longest rides I’ve ever had, over five minutes of not one but seven wedges! So I’m posting it here for the memory books.”
And as it turns out, more than just his own memory books. An update at the bottom of the video description notes that the ride was recently submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records for the title of Most Turns on a Single Wave, a title currently held by Cristóbal de Col for 34 turns on a wave at the infamous break of Chicama in Peru. Dylan counts 40 turns on his wave, and has promised to keep us all updated as soon as he hears back.
