Lucky Sixes!

Earlier this spring in Maui, the GA / Tabou team, along with infiltrator Timo Mullen, clocked into a surprise late season session at Jaws. The forecast medium sized swell by far exceeded expectations and late in the afternoon there was a golden hour, when the waves pumped over six metres and six lucky sailors scored a rare uncrowded session. John Carter and Graham Ezzy report on a lucky day at Pe’ahi.

- John Carter

OPEN MINDED

JC - One thing I have learned about Maui over the years is that you never know what the Pacific Ocean is going to throw at you. On one hand there can be all sorts of expectations and excitement about a massive swell looming but come the day, for one reason or another nothing develops. On the other side of the coin a mediocre swell can be predicted but all of a sudden it can pulse from logo high to mast and a half in a matter of hours. Back in the spring of 2016 we were in the midst of the GA photo shoot when such a day took Maui by surprise.

The fact there was a swell forecast was not in question. Windguru was giving around 2.3m at 14 seconds, which in my books normally means a pretty solid day at Ho’okipa. I drove up the Hana Highway first thing to check and at 7am there were absolutely zero waves rolling in on any of the reefs from Mama’s all the way up to Ho’okipa. With that in mind we made the decision to head down to Sprecks in the morning to finish off some urgently needed race and freeride shots before reconvening at Ho’okipa at three to catch the premium session on the rising swell.

By noon, I was kind of regretting the earlier call to spend the morning down the coast since during the course of a matter of hours the swell had kicked in and was already mast high and grinding. A quick chat with Thomas Traversa confirmed that the early session as the swell kicked in was all time with just a couple of guys out and the perfect size for water shots. By 1pm some of the sets were already closing across the channel next to the rocks and the likes of Jason Polakow, Robby Swift, Levi Siver, Brawzinho, Timo Mullen and Robby Naish were all out charging giant sets. This was probably the best wave day of the trip so far and we had spent the whole morning shooting hand drags and chop hops at Sprecks, doh!

BUILDING SWELL