No big waves for big-wave contest
La Niña spoils surfers’ hopes
The Mavericks big-wave surf contest has vanished again, but this time, the humans were not at fault.
The ocean failed to cooperate in one of the quietest winter months on record, and officials of the World Surf League have been forced to target next year.
Having endured years of contest mismanagement, the local surfing community welcomed the arrival of the WSL, which runs a Big Wave World Tour and also a pro circuit for men and women. But there was a delay in the Mavericks permit process, postponing the opening of the contest window until Jan. 1, and the waiting period will expire Wednesday without a big swell in sight.
No one could have foreseen such a thing. Five of the past Mavericks contests were held in the month of February: 1999, 2004, 2006, 2010 (with wave faces up to 50 feet, one of the most awe-inspiring big-wave contests in history) and 2016. But this was no ordinary February.
“In my 27 years surfing Mavericks, we’ve never had a February with no big swells,” San Francisco’s Grant Washburn said. “That’s just unheard of.
And it’s not going to change anytime soon.”
Bay Area meteorologist Mark Sponsler, a reliable forecasting source for the contest over the years, pointed to a La Niña pattern that is “the strongest we’ve seen in my memory. There’s a strong high-pressure system that is persistent and well-entrenched, which locks down any chance of meaningful storm production in the Mavericks swell window. And it’s looking like it will continue for a few weeks.”
This isn’t likely to be an issue next year. The WSL schedules three big-wave events in winter — Mavericks, Nazare (Portugal) and Peahi (Maui) — and according to Commissioner Mike Parsons, “Our goal is to start Oct. 15 with all three events open until the end of February. If we can get them all in one season, it will be a legitimate tour — like a big-wave triple crown.”
There were a couple of close calls at Mavericks in mid-January, WSL officials putting everyone on alert. But the contest has to be called 72 hours in advance, giving international surfers, judges, water patrol, webcast organizers and officials enough time to make the trip. A couple of decent days unfolded Jan. 15-16, surfers enjoying clean conditions and occasional 30-foot faces, but at the 72-hour mark, the weather forecasts were unfavorable.
Then came an unforgettable Thursday, the 18th, when Mavericks was so out-of-control big and treacherous, only a few waves were ridden in gloomy, drizzly conditions and a dangerous southeast wind.
That perfect day, offering mild weather and legitimately giant surf, simply did not arrive.
“Looking back, maybe it was contestable on one of those two good days,” said Washburn, “but it wouldn’t have been classic Mavericks. And the talent level is just off the scale now. One difficult thing about the freakish skill of the new global big-wave scene is that everyone expects Mavericks to be 25 feet (by openocean measurement, translating to 50-foot faces) and barreling. It feels like we need that to properly challenge the new breed.”
Perhaps the biggest regrets are among the six women invited to surf a historic, first-ever heat during the contest. They’ve fought hard for equality in this event, meeting inexplicably fierce resistance from the previous ownership group (Cartel Management), and this was going to be their first competitive showcase at Mavericks.
Still, there has been progress, particularly from Bianca Valenti, the San Francisco-based surfer who has surfed Mavericks more than any woman over the past three seasons.
With the Half Moon Bay break having an off winter, Valenti devoted much of her season to surfing Peahi, the feared break on Maui known as “Jaws,” and she caught a memorable wave there Jan. 14 during the biggest swell of the Hawaiian winter.
Aside from offering wave faces in the 40- to 50-foot range, with a few sets even bigger, Jaws was especially dangerous because of a nasty wind that chopped up the surface. Several of the world’s most heralded big-wave riders decided not to surf that day, but Valenti, 32, was determined. She watched it for hours from the channel, finally deciding to venture out around 2 p.m.
“It was scary, some awful wipeouts were going down,” she said. “It was still pretty crowded, and I was out there for three hours just waiting for the right one. It started to get dark and my boat captain wanted to head back, but I said, ‘No, we’re not leaving.’
“Finally, a wave came to me. Some really heavy guys — Twiggy Baker, Jamie Mitchell — were just screaming for me to go. So I did. I was totally committed.”
It did not end well. Valenti found herself airborne on the drop — “like hitting a ramp” — but she stuck the landing and reached the bottom of the wave. Shocked that she had pulled off that feat, she wasn’t able to lean into a turn, and then “I just got completely demo’d. A good, solid beat-down. And there were more waves after that, so I had to take those on the head. But you know, the way I see it, I’m one step closer to making that bottom turn and getting into the barrel out there.”
The response was awe-inspiring. Valenti had just surfed one of the biggest waves ever attempted by a woman — especially in the paddle-surfing realm, as opposed to being towed in by JetSki — “and I got some major props,” she said. “A lot of the locals told me that was the coolest thing they saw all day.”
Such are the memories for a lifetime.