RABBIT’S DANCE WITH DEATH
The day Pipeline released its lethal grip ...
ON Christmas Day in 1975, Wayne “Rabbit’’ Bartholomew had the most frightening moment of his life when he danced with death at the iconic Pipeline.
The 1978 world surfing champion retold his frightening encounter to Gold Coast author Chris “Swag’’ Gudenswager for his new twovolume book set, Does the Ocean Love You Back.
Two years before his breakout season on the pro-tour, Bartholomew was surfing Hawaii’s Pipeline on a day in which he described the waves as “12ft+ Hawaiian size west-swell that would probably be judged at 15ft+ these days”. (That’s from 3.6 metres to more than 4.5m).
Hours into his session, the then 21-year-old Batholomew pulled into a wave before realising he had dropped in on American surfer Ed Farwell.
Bartholomew says in the book: “This was a full-on Road Runner/Coyote moment where time slowed down to an absolute standstill and as I was doing my set up bottom turn Ed was doing his behind me in a long fluid sweeping motion with a ton of momentum carrying him forward as you can well imagine,” Batholomew said.
“I rode straight into his path and he basically caught me in his arms and just for this one moment we both realised that we were going to get absolutely slaughtered.”
The former president of the Association of Surfing Professionals said his death hug with his fellow surfer had no malice and both men immediately went into survival mode.
“I don’t know what it was exactly, it all happened so fast and it was just this moment where Ed is holding on to me in this unbelievably scary position where we have both lost a bit of speed and some of the momentum we were hoping would save us.
“And as this wave pitched out about 20ft, I remember the sight of us just standing there embraced in limbo, totally powerless to change the situation and then watching this massive curtain go over us in slow motion before a moment of absolute detonation like you wouldn’t believe.
“The one fortunate thing that happened, which I used to see a lot at Pipeline, was the wave being so gnarly as it breaks, it folds back into itself, compressing air and spits, sometimes sending a trapped surfer out the back of the wave instead of driving you into the reef and towards the beach.
“The wave massively implodes and then the back compression blows out the other way, sometimes forming a sweet spot where you get deposited out of the back of the wave instead of inside it – hard to explain but you know what I mean. This was a serious, disconcerting ‘I think we’re gonna die’ moment and I did actually think for a millisecond that we could die right there, right then.
“I remember thinking I just killed Ed Farwell, but at that moment thankfully, we were
both spat out the back with the wave’s backdraft.”
Gathering themselves in the water and realising they had both survived, the pair were met with another conundrum.
“You also gotta remember, we had to deal with the thing about being left in that position at Pipeline in the impact zone, as you have to get out of the way of the next detonation and that’s as dangerous a place as any to find yourself in,” Batholomew, 65, said.
“The concussion of a lip to the head while you’re swimming for your life could be fatal as we didn’t have leg ropes on out there that day and had to swim for our boards.
“Ed and I were sort of working as a team, cautiously swimming our way back through the impact zone to the beach and I apologised profusely.
“Ed, knowing I had no idea he was way back in the tube when I made my move, understood my deepest concern and we shook shaky hands afterwards and realised we had just shared something of a radical moment of survival out there together.”
Does the Ocean Love You Back is being released on Monday, detailing the above rollicking tale and other surfing stories of triumph and terror by lots of big-name wave riders.
To purchase the book visit www.swagbooks.com.au