Two insane waves from a few days of insane waves. Images: Screenshot/Instagram
When Teahupoʻo really goes off, it’s one of the most incredible waves on Earth. Maybe, perhaps, the most incredible. And on Friday, August 13, the wave at the end of the road went absolutely bonkers. It was, according to Garrett McNamara, “one of the biggest swells to hit that bit of reef since Code Red in 2011.”
A few of the world’s best Chopes wranglers were on hand to make sure they got some of the biggest waves of their lives, and two in particular stand out: Kauli Vaast and Matahi Drollet. It’s been a wild few days, and these two waves are the wildest we’ve seen in a long, long time.
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Vaast waited three hours for the wave you see above to come to him. “Wave of a lifetime,” Vaast wrote on Instagram. “…When that wave came, I saw the biggest mountain of water I’ve ever seen coming. It was my turn and I just went for it !! I was focussed and so ready to go!”
Matahi Drollet, of course, would never miss a swell like the one that hit Teahupoʻo. He knows his way around the place — he’s the younger brother of Manoa, who was part of the early crew of surfers who really charged the place.
“Drollet played the patience game, which paid off around 5 p.m., right before sunset, as the swell peaked and he was whipped in the perfect spot by his brother and took the perfect line through an impossibly heavy, crazy loud, building-sized tube — and straight into surf history,” wrote Garrett McNamara.
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