It’s very true: Getting barreled is one of surfing’s most revered feelings. Even if you don’t make it out, the vision alone can improve your week. But it’s also one of surfing’s most fleeting. To get the swell, tide, and wind to line up is your first challenge – the wave-opening kiss from offshore gusts is always lovely. But then there’s the size. Over six feet and barrels can become, ahem, quite challenging to navigate (just the paddling alone). Below chest high and they often turn into squat fests. For us mortal animals, the conditions rarely line up.
Then there’s getting barreled on a foil, an entirely different conversation. Using a foil is hard enough – becoming accustomed to riding on the front foot infinitely more often is your first battle (when taking off on a foil setup, the kit can become life-like, yearning to punch you in the face). Learning to ride is the first task. Getting barreled on one is rather mind-blowing. Foiling might not have just become cool, but it definitely graduated from the nerd closet when Matahi Drollet released a few brain-bending clips this week as he got fully throated at one of the most famous barrels in the world: Teahupo’o
Granted, Matahi, like most Tahitians, has probably gotten more barreled than most humans during the course of his existence. But come on, this is insane. The comments from surf royalty fall in line with that thought: “Wow this pic is amazing,” wrote Mick Fanning on a photo Matahi posted from Thomas Bevilacqua, below. “Beasttttttt sickkk in the head🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🔨🔨🔨🔨💯💯💯🤙,” reads the emoji-filled scribbling of Mason Ho. “Insane,” wrote Jamie O’Brien. I urge you to peruse the comments on both the video and the photo. The entirety of the surfing world was impressed, it seems.
Further proof that there’s no sleeping on this foil thing. And that getting barreled still rules the day over any other trick in surfing.
