This particular bank didn’t last months, weeks or even days. It lasted minutes!

As an example, where I grew up surfing, in 1992 there was this bank that mesmerised all that rode it, a left with a shorter right off it. On its best day it lined up peeling for over 200 metres with three barrel sections and it stayed around for four months changings lightly over that time but still offering all time rides. For years following there was the odd bank here and there, but nothing of great significance and that particular bank was talked about for years. Recently I spoke to one of the local old boys when conditions looked good forth at spot, and he informed met hat there had been a pretty epic bank in the back of the bay, but in his words, “Nothing like that bank years ago when the All Blacks were playing”. You see, the best session ever went down when the Blacks were playing ate stand the water emptied out for hours over the best part of the tide with only four of us getting piped all arvo. That was now 20 years ago and to have him still compare any bank that comes and goes to that one, well then that was‘ The Bank’. There were a few other banks that I have been privileged to share over the years, that I’m sure were up there and possibly still up there as the standard. The morning after my 21 stat Peaks Ship wreck was one. Now normally the waves of Shippies are long bang-able walls but on this occasion it was a freight train, below sea level tube from the outside take off through to the rocks, with barrels 80 metres long. Another was on New Years in1 999 at Arataki in the Bay of Plenty, yes I can see those locals that shared that bank nodding in a greeance right now.And then there was a certain river bar in Poverty Bay that after decades of those old boy stories comparing the wave to Indonesia’s Nias, all the new generation had ever seen was a mushy close out, until three years ago, when a bank formed that even had Maz Quinn claiming his best barrels ever in NZ. Floods came and went yet the bank remained a good four months before eventually washing away returning it to its typical form. Without getting all scientific on things, it seems through experience and reports that the West Coast banks last longer than the East. It could be the weight of these diment with their on sand of the West being a lot heavier and able to with stand currents and washed outs wells, that change the East Coast banks in a matter of days. This particular bank didn’t last months, weeks or even days. It lasted minutes! And approximately 40 of them, but why do you ask was it so special? Well Wainui Beach is no stranger to good surf, in fact it rates right up there as one of our most consistent and quality surf breaks on our shores. So to pick this bank as one of the all time, well that’s a heavy call, yet one with merit. You see the classic days that Wainui sees usually come about from swell angle pushing down the beach, or a mixture of two swells that create a-frame speeling every where with in