MANIC MONDAY

Thomas Traversa, northwest winds with a monster swell and the famed French big wave spot of Île aux Vaches; put these four elements together and you know there will be a windsurf session worth documenting. John Carter, Timo Mullen and Thomas Traversa tell the tale of a manic Monday in December.

- John Carter, Timo Mullen, Thomas Traversa

JOHN CARTER - “On December the 8th 2018, the Windsurf Project scored an epic session at the notorious big wave spot of Île aux Vaches in France. That very same weekend I was committed to shooting the APP SUP race finals in Paris and was gutted to miss out. Jamie Hancock later released an awesome clip of the session that went down with Thomas Traversa, Boujmaa Guilloul and a hardy local crew all ripping it up in double mast high waves. It was a groundbreaking big wave session and one for the history books, especially with two big wave gurus going head to head with mother nature in dramatic fashion. Fast forward exactly a year to December 8th 2019 and I was looking at exactly the same scenario. I had agreed to shoot the APP stand up finals on Dec 6th and 7th, while the forecast was looking extreme for Île aux Vaches the following day on the 8th, 600 km away. The swell was predicted to be a humungous 7 metres at 18 seconds combined with 30 knot northwest winds on Monday morning, which was already giving me massive FOMO (fear of missing out). I had heard through the grapevine Thomas Traversa was planning a repeat hit and run mission and that Jamie Hancock was going to join him to capture the session on film.

Logistically for me it was going to be almost impossible to make it to the very western tip of Brittany. I was committed to be at the Paris boat show until around 7 p.m. on Sunday night, but the good old French had planned the same weekend for massive rail strikes. To put it simply the French transport system was thrown into chaos, meaning the only way I could make it to Brittany would be catching a ride somehow.