This time, it could be for real.
The last time the hordes and the big-wave surfing experts packed Waimea Bay on Feb. 10, it was a false alarm. Everything was ready for the Eddie except the swell that did not bring the required wave-face heights of 40 feet.
That dry run is over and the preparations are in order again for another go at it today. A yellow alert was given on Monday, followed by a green alert Tuesday night, which means all systems are go and the final decision on whether the contest will run or not will be made this morning. The 28 competitors — 17 of whom are from Hawaii — were set to check in on Wednesday afternoon.
If the predicted swell comes through this time with favorable wind conditions, Hawaii’s Kohl Christensen will be one of the Hawaii surfers competing in the first round of the contest, which is a World Surf League Speciality Event scheduled to start at 8 a.m.
Christensen is prepping the best way he knows how — by riding gigantic waves.
“We caught the back end of the latest big swell,” said Christensen about his tow-in session with friends on Waimea’s outer reef Monday. “It was really big Monday, the biggest the North Shore has been in years and because of a light north wind, it was somewhat unmanageable. I wanted to feel the energy of the massive waves.”
The next morning, Christensen and Ben Wilkinson, an alternate for the contest, paddled out to Waimea in the moonlight before sunrise to catch a few.
“We were the first guys out and it was surreal looking at the moon and Jupiter close by,” he said.
Christensen also said the competitors will be mindful of their departed friend, Brock Little, the big-wave charger who died of cancer Feb. 18. He added that Little was “absolutely” sending the huge swell Hawaii’s way.
Some of surfing’s biggest names of all time are in the Eddie, including 11-time world champion Kelly Slater and former world champions Sunny Garcia and Tom Carroll as well as big-wave fiends Makua Rothman, Shane Dorian, Ross Clarke-Jones and Garrett McNamara.
John John Florence, the stylistic World Surf League tour competitor, doesn’t go into hiding when the big bombs arrive and will be out at the Bay if the contest is called on. Clyde Aikau, the brother of the late Eddie Aikau, is also in the field of 28 vying for the $75,000 first-place prize money.
Only nine times in the 31 years of the event has the contest been run. Greg Long won it in 2009, the last time the conditions were up to par.
Eddie Aikau, the big-wave rider, lifeguard and overall waterman, died in 1978 while swimming for help when the Polynesian voyaging canoe Hokule‘a — which was on a cultural expedition from Oahu to Tahiti — capsized in treacherous open-ocean conditions.
ON THE AIR
Live broadcasts can be found at worldsurfleague.com, quiksilver.com/eddie, on Oceanic Time Warner Cable channels 250 and 1250, and on the CBS Sports Network on channels 247 and 1247.
COMPETITORS
Hawaii:
Clyde Aikau
Kala Alexander
Kohl Christensen
Shane Dorian
John John Florence
Sunny Garcia
Aaron Gold
Mark Healey
Bruce Irons
Noah Johnson
Albee Layer
Reef McIntosh
Garrett McNamara
Jamie O’Brien
Makua Rothman
Ian Walsh
David Wassell
California:
Nathan Fletcher
Greg Long
Peter Mel
Florida: Kelly Slater
Australia:
Tom Carroll
Ross Clarke-Jones
Jamie Mitchell
Chile: Ramon Navarro
France: Jeremy Flores
Japan: Takayuki Wakita
South Africa: Grant Baker
TOTAL PRIZE MONEY
Purse: $186,500 ($75,000 winner’s share)
PAST “EDDIE” WINNERS
1984-85: Denton Miyamura, Hawaii
1986: Clyde Aikau, Hawaii
1989-90: Keone Downing, Hawaii
1998-99: Noah Johnson, Hawaii
2000-01: Ross Clarke-Jones, Australia
2001-02: Kelly Slater, Florida
2004-05: Bruce Irons, Hawaii
2009-10: Greg Long, California
