Organizers cancel Eddie Aikau big wave surfing contest
STAR-ADVERTISER / 2016
People gathered early in the morning at Waimea Bay Beach on the North Shore hoping to watch the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational.
The Eddie Aikau Foundation and the Eddie Aikau Family LLC announced today that it is canceling the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational for the 2020-21 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Aikau’s siblings—Myra, Sol and Clyde—decided as a family that the surf competition would not be run out of an abundance of caution.
“Waimea Bay makes the call when the Eddie is on,” Clyde Aikau said. “This year the pandemic made the call for us, and we just want to keep everybody safe because we know that even if we have it, even with masks on, there’ll be thousands of people at the beach.”
He said it’s been five years since the last one in 2016 when 30,000 people were on the beach.
The family thanked the sponsors of The Eddie and look forward to next year’s opening ceremonies for the 2021-22 season.
Aikau said if they put on The Eddie similar to with what’s happening in some professional sports, it would be a tremendous amount of work, money and effort in trying to work with the city on getting permits.
“We’d like to thank all the people of Hawaii for their support and the mayor and the governor and the Department of Land and Natural Resources,” he said. “We’re going to take a break this year and come back next year, double strong and double intense.”
