© Red Bull Tai Fu
Big Wave Surfers Charge the Swell During Typhoon
Sep 21 2006 / Los Angeles, CA Every year from March until September Japan lives in fear of massive typhoons pummeling the coast. On average Japan sees around 27 of these massive uprisings, which are best known to Americans as hurricanes. This year Ross Clarke-Jones and a handful of surfers like the young gun Ian Walsh from Kauai and Carlos Burle from Brazil have been anxiously awaiting those massive swells, with the hope that they would harness the power and surf the biggest waves known to man. The mission to focus with a team on the Japanese typhoons and is being funded by none other than the extreme thrill backing company, Red Bull.According to the Red Bull Tai Fu (how the Japanese spell typhoon) website, Japanese lore says that if you see bees nesting in the ground, it’s going to be a big typhoon year. Apparently this has been reported throughout coastal Japan this year. In August a massive typhoon hit the coast of China, claiming only two lives, but requiring over a million to be evacuated from the coast in China. The largest typhoon in recent Japanese history was in 1957 and claimed 5,000 lives.
Over the weekend the swell the surfers had been waiting for finally arrived. According to news reports a handful of fisherman and a loan surfer were killed when Typhoon Shanshan ripped through the southern Islands of Okinawa. Local weather reports are calling for close to a foot of rain for the next 24 hours. Here’s a dispatch from Red Bull Australia from the last week:
Woke up before dawn and found the swell seemed to change direction and it wasn’t the massive increase we expected but…we went up the east side and found a different wave – a left with death ledges and some regular 15
footers with a couple of 18-20 foot waves. Easily the biggest waves surfed in Japan.
But everyone copped a beating: Jun Jo managed to flip a ski on top of himself, Ross and Beau Emerton both found the ledge giving them an unsympathetic sudden descent, and the chopper pilot lost control and almost went down.
After 2 long sessions we’re all a bit tired but safe (although Jun and Ian Walsh have been giving each other lustful winks after being left behind stranded on a bung ski for an hour).
Tom Carroll said it was the biggest waves he’s ever surfed. Genki Horiguchi reckons these were biggest waves he’s seen in Japan without the hazardous weather to go with it. So all in all a success – we managed to surf a typhoon for 2 days and not cop the destruction and shot some great footage.
After a well-earned pigs’ ear tonight we’ll pack up our skis tomorrow morning before the weather sets in.
Stay tuned to Lat34.com for an upcoming story later this month on the Future of Big Wave Surfing. Also expect to see coverage from Maverick’s and the North Shore later in the season.
