The Peahi big wave will not happen this winter season, according to the WSL. Photo: Hallman//WSL
A short three-sentence note appeared on the WSL’s press page on November 1, quietly announcing that there would be no big wave event this season at Pe’ahi, aka Jaws, on the island of Maui. The WSL said it was “not granted the land license necessary to operate the event,” and therefore the competition will not run in the 2024-2025 season.
The WSL’s Big Wave World Tour, which was already lacking events, has been halved from two events to only one. The remaining event on tour (can we still call it a tour if there’s only one event?) is the TUDOR NAZARÉ Big Wave Challenge in Portugal. The window for that event opened November 1 and closes March 31, 2025.
The WSL first held a big wave event at Pe’ahi in 2015 and it became an annual occurrence until the COVID pandemic shut down professional sports in 2020. Over the five years it ran, Billy Kemper dominated with four wins. Ian Walsh won in 2017, the only year Kemper didn’t take top honors. The event was on the WSL’s big wave schedule from 2020 through 2023, but it never ran. Maui’s Paige Alms won the event three times.
The cancellation comes at a particularly inopportune time as the Gary Linden-led Big Wave Alliance attempts to create a parallel six-stop tour to crown its own big wave champions. When I spoke with Linden he said that when the WSL took over the Big Wave Tour in 2014, the League’s 10-times increased investment was unsustainable and when coupled with the difficulty of waiting for ideal big wave conditions, sponsors ran and the tour became a shell of what it once was.
I’m curious how the local chargers feel about the cancellation. Kemper and Albee Layer didn’t immediately respond to my requests for comment. You’ll know more when we know more.
