What's the largest wave you've ridden?

[Kunji]

Tell us a tale. Obviously waves exist in more than one dimension, for instance, a 6 footer out Chopes would be a lot "bigger" than a 10 footer in a lot of other places.

So set the seen, what kind of wave and where was your biggest? Did you make it? Were there bigger waves on the day? And did you actually get covered on the beast.

Protip: 1 surfing foot = 1ft x 0.5ft
eg. a head hight wave (6ft) is a 3 ft'er in surfing terms.

[Beerfan]

Half overhead is my limit. Really only surfed that size a few times, usually on the fat side. Once my mate and i paddled out at what looked half overhead and ok, only to get there and its nearly DOH and pitching into the sand. Before we could move, we got hit by a bomb set. My mate snapped his tufflite, and i shat my pants. We got hammered, and came in with tails between legs.

Its odd, because half overhead, slow and fat is so different to head high, low tide, fast moving and powerfull.

Ok you can laugh at my small balls now!.

[Cpt.Caveman]

Surfing straight into the shark net at Balmoral. Heavy...

[Nick Carroll]

Paddle-in btw, no fcuken tow in claims.

right coops?

The old guys at Waimea reckon it closes out at 25' so mine must have been 24'6". It was extremely late, a real last second decision to go. A cloudy day with light winds, about 4pm, right on the outer ledge. I'd been out about an hour and had my dander up, feeling confident. Second wave of a big set, first one cleared off the ledge, second one looked like some sort of deranged magnification of DY point. That place sucks out! It was not a rational decision to go, just an instantaneous recognition that I could make it if I went right then. Spun round, two paddles and into a free-fall. Luckily the wind wasn't blowing so I was allowed to fall down the line of the face rather than getting blown into mid-air. Connected half way down the face with a jolt and slid forward on my board about a foot but it was OK. Rode it down and up, pushed by the foamball, faded out into the inside channel. Mega rush!

Had a few 23'ers over time, some of them were pretty full on but that one tops the list as far as pure in the moment craziness goes. I'd never do it today.

[steve shearer]

20 foot open ocean swells in a 50 foot Gaff rigged schooner, south of Hawaii, sailing for the Marshalls.

On a broad reach starboard tack with 25-30knots of tradewind, single reefed mainsail and nothing ahead for 2000 nautical miles, a moon and some stars. Early evening watch.
the lights of Honolulu fading quickly into blackness.

With a hand tiller if you push hard enough as the swell lifts the boat and the bow starts to drop you can push a 50 foot boat into a full carving turn down swell , readjusting and holding forward boatspeed till the next swell catches you up.
Fcuking exhilerating.

Had my girl on board with me and she was peaking, thought we were gunna die.


there ya go Ringa......now did I tell ya about the long perfect left we found on ......atoll.
Made P-Pass look like kiddies corner.

(and to think I've ended up surfing babyfood in Boring Bay)

[puurri]

Good'un Steve!

Outside Shark Island (if you've seen it working you'll know) and I'm not calling the size, just BIG!

[Squidlips]

Torquay point at 2 ft cross onshore. Fcuk it was epic.

only real men paddled out that day, changed my life for sure.

[puurri]

^^ obviously Torquay (UK). So what was the Squealsurf report that day?
Mmmmmmmax vibes on the dancefloor with Spandau Ballet calling the shots?

[Lucky Al]

i rode this huge wave at thirroul beach once, back in the day. i would have been fourteen, fifteen at the most. my mates tim and dave were out too, in fact it was dark and stormy and the sun was yet to rise, we had all got up and trotted down in the dark. i think we had all stayed over at dave's place, or mabye mine. anyway, on this one wave bigger than all the rest that came through that day i took off late and deep... and drove hard off the bottom and went vert... and whacked the lip: whack!!! no fear, no fear whatsoever. but i fell off and got smashed. tim was paddling over the shoulder and saw it all, and i'll never forget how when i bobbed back up and was grasping for my board he sneered and shook his head and said, 'you're such a poser, al.' i've never posed since. haha, yes i have! but that wave was big - way, way, way, over head. i can just see it in my mind's eye today, ooh but i'm scared to look!

[Grooter]

Would probably have been a 3.5 metre on the face (sorry mate, can't get my head around the whole foot and then surfers foot measurement thing!) bomb at Gunamatta about 5 or 6 years ago.

Felt like I was being launched out of a cannon as the waves are very powerful there at that size. Nothing to shapely about it, just fat and powerful

Have tried of late to tackle them closer to this size as I lost my nerve a bit after having a kid (why I don't know but I'm not alone from other guys I've spoken to) and have only gotten smashed from doing so. Getting there.

[Revolution]

Probably an 8ft wave on a 6ft day at a reef down south. Nothing spectacular. Id like to claim i got a good barrel or something but cant.

[speedneedle]

Rode a MASSIVE wave of Euphoria at the Big Day Out in like, 1994 when Rage Against the Machine paused for a moment then yelled:-

"FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!!!"

epic...

Oh...ocean waves, yearce...hmmm, like Jarosite at 10 ft, jacking and bottomless, with only a tow-in crew to contend with, who helped me get back out the back a number of times and dropped me in the impact zone. I needed every inch of a 7'8"...

Gibsons steps, Cathedral...and that day at South Wall Ballina when I nearly died...Oh and Lennox...Oh and the hold-down at big Bells where I was bashed on the head by my rail as I went free-falling and blacked out underwater...came-to underwater, could'nt find the surface, and on making it up I was coughing water and blood.

It's fun having guns...

Josh
www.joshdowlingshape.com

[gibber]

Took the big drop at dream world, pretty bloody scary
also rode a huge wave that wrapped all the way around the gabba at a twenty20 match.
Ahh but seriously now,
have had a few big sessions at large burleigh that would be in the 8-10' range. First time I surfed it at that size I wad a cheeky grom on a 6'2 with bugger all rocker and belly channels, your typical mid eighty's pig. The tide had bottomed out and I was standing at the point watching and trying to all calm and cool cause al byrne was there. Anyway I paddled out with al and one of his mates and sat wider than them and shat every time a set came. I finally plucked enough courage to sit a bit deeper and take one of the smaller ones which wouldve been a touch under 8' but still felt like I was out at waimea. I rode that wave from outside the cove all the way through down the point and proned out to the beach. Have surfed bigger than that since but on better equipment but still had butterflies.
Hairiest surf wouldve been out front of broadbeach after a cyclone had passed. It was big, very big by goldy standards and quite ugly as a northerly had piped in making things a bit cross chopped. I'd surfed good kirra that morning and with the onshore blowing wasn't all that keen on going back down but was still keen to get a few so paddled out front of my place with two mates. Took a while to find a decent rip but once I did it motored me out with only the need to duckdive a few shorey horrors and I was on my way. When I got out I looked back to shore and thought farkkk, Im a long way out and where are the other two...they didn't make it past the shorey.
I looked north and saw that waves were kinda wrapping off the rip like a point break so I paddled across the head of the rip to the cleaner water and waited for a wave.
First set came and I was too far out so paddled in with them and watched how each wave stood on the bank so I could get an idea of how they would be to ride. They looked pretty good, a tad sucky and wedgy but definitely makeable. Next set appeared about ten minutes later and I sat and left the first two and waited for the third. She was running a bit wider than the first two and had a wall running diagonally off it so thought she'd be a longer option do dug in deep and paddled for it. The take off was late and steep But my feet found their mark and I dropped down and ran out onto the flat before setting a rail and turned out onto the face then up to a top turn, then back down again, repeating the process a further four times before kinking out and paddled back out.
Caught six more after that one, all pretty similar in size though some shorter and others more hollow before heading in.
My mates were sitting on the dunes waiting and reckoned the waves were two and a half to three times over head, so guess that would be solid 8' or so and a farken looooooong way out from shore

[marcus]

outside shark island, actually way outside the patch looking back to shore.
about 500m minimum out behind phantoms. took ages, like an hour to paddle out there.
was a 7-9 m swell years ago, some guys (wazza feinbeer, fordham, boogs etc)the next day were talking about they heard a wave was recorded in botany bay at 20m, though i think that may have been a whitewash to make the bouy read that. i commented it may have been the one i rode, they just looked at me.
i dont know how big my wave was, but if you line up outside outside surge, it was out further than that, it was over to the north of that, and i could see oak park change rooms looking south(looked that way every now and then thinking i may have to paddle in the river). patch/island looking straight in.
not osbournes, but i could see that quite scarilly close, it was breaking onshorelike in all the way from osbourne shoal to shark island and in through to patch.

a set closed out the horizon from ozbournes and when it hit me i somehow got through it, it was a deep water reform kinda wave. but hit real hard, pushed a bit back and just paddled my arse off out further. in a NE direction.
another closeout at osbournes and i was fked. it kept coming and not reforming just whitewash on top of this big wall then the south and north sides of the wave barrelled and started to close out.
it had about 5ft of whitewash on the top of the wall infront of me.
i turned around and it hit, holding on to my bodyboard it threw me around and ragdolled me, but still riding the whitewash going straight, but totally out of control. and it walled and reformed outside island about where phantoms is off to the north east of outside surge and i just rode it all the way to outside surge bouncing all over the shop, shaking and vibrating. and the wave hit me again, must have closed out again and i popped up behind patch.

came in through point and point was just like a long version of shark island, fking slabbing but onshore.
i chipped a tooth on that wave, only regret is i didnt ride it to southies, i want to do that one day,
matt percy told me recently hes got two waves in his life from island to patch, now thats impressive.
(edit: i think he may have ridden it twice to blackwoods beach, cant remember)
i want one like that, but all the way through, but i dont think it will ever happen.
seen rusty moran get close on his hydrofoil towing though. (outside island to just shy of the patch)

i know most will think im bullshitting, i dont care, ask my lil bro or matt percy they saw me out that day. i overheard perce telling ballard and ballard said, but did he get barrelled,

[Lucky Al]

bullshit marcus!

[marcus]

just recently i dogged the messiest day i have ever seen.
i was at lennox head the day of the floods.
i have some video footage of it on my mobile but it doesnt do it justice.
it was just this amazing messy sea state. maybe a local like steve shearer would be able to ride it on that day, but i had never been there before.
had a mal on the roof and a boogie in the car.
went down the bottom to get aeway from the carpark crowd and pood under a palm tree on the famous boulders.
watched in awe and tried desperatelty to figure a plan of getting out, and how to get back in if things went wrong. or even if nothing went wrong.
f#ck f#ck was freaking, were was a crazy local when you need one.
it was empty and huge and a mess of barrels and whitewash and rips.

i came back up the hill to my girlfreind sitting in the car looking worried.
a guy said to me they only way to surf that today mate is with a helicopter.
some guy asked me if i was taking the mal out.
sat in the car swearing at myself, texted stu to get steve shearer to go out first.
then just put the carin reverse and f#cked off like a tourist to look at the seas like everyone else from shore.
felt like the biggest kook, never backed down ever before, but i just didnt know the joint.
and it scared the shit out of me.
just drove away down to ballina and further on south through floodwaters with a bloody malibu on the roof.

[Lucky Al]

'maybe a local like steve shearer would be able to ride it' - marcus taking the piss again, all bullshit he learns it in the mines they all talk everything up there as they blow up their house-size tires.

[turtle]

i think maybe june/july 02/03 we had big swell.
this afternoon glassed off about 3pm, was forries lefts.
some important surfers in the water so a few photogs about and some guys towing. the day was called at 15ft to 18ft and same afternoon apparently guys copping double overhead tubes at north avoca point. some footage and photos about...

they the biggest waves i've paddled into, only got 3. schooled on 1 and unforgettable on other 2.
thank fcuk for memories