The Perfect Day
THE PERFECT WAVE | SPONSORED STORY
The Perfect Day
JAN 19, 2017 Banzai Pipeline, North Shore Oahu, Hawaii
Words, photos and video clip by Andy Potts for The Perfect Wave.
January was a strange month on the North Shore. The buzz of John John taking the World title was still the talk of the town, and the vibe to go surfing was beyond contagious as always, the only issue was, there weren’t any waves.
The month started super slow with consistent, though weak 2-4ft swells lapping the shore everyday for the first 10 days of the month.
Thankfully, by mid to late January a couple of intense systems delivered large swells across the North Pacific and onto the famous seven-mile miracle that is the north shore.
The first swell was a solid one from the NW at around 16 seconds, The Backdoor shootout ran during that swell, allowing some of North Shores finest to display their local knowledge and enjoy some world class waves at their local break.
Arguably the highlight of the month or perhaps even the season went down on January 19. The much-anticipated swell hit overnight with the sound of thunderous giants unleashing their power onto the Pipeline Backdoor reef, keeping everyone awake throughout the night. At first light, you could truly see the power and spectacle that Pipeline is on a special day. The world’s best surfers and underground chargers lined the beach sizing up some of the biggest and heaviest pipeline ridden this season.
The swell had a little more West in it than the previous episode and it was much bigger in size (3-4 times overhead with occasional bigger sets at 18 seconds) with second and third reef lighting up and also causing carnage with endless broken boards and bruised egos washing up onto the beach.
For some crew, it would be the best day of their surfing lives.
Sebastian Correa scored a wave of the week contender at Backdoor that I'm still not sure if he has come out of yet! John John Florence, Josh Kerr, Koa Rothman, Mason Ho and many more Pipeline legends were also on hand to score what was arguably the day of the season.
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