Capping off a sensational day of surfing at the Eddie Aikau invitational event in Waimea Bay, Hawaii, Greg long of San Clemente in the USA was a deserved winner and walked away with a cool USD$55,000.
Photo courtesy of quicksilver.com
The Eddie hasn’t been held since 2004 and was last won by Bruce Irons who finished his final wave with a massive 8 foot close out barrell which had the crowd on their feet. Today’s event was every bit as exciting as 2004 with wave faces up to 45 feet making for some huge wipeouts but even more amazing was the drops that some of these guys were taking. In fact, Chillean Ramon Navarro pocketed USD$10,000 for drop of the day with his mind blowing efforts in staying on his feet after a near vertical takeoff on a 35 odd foot monster.
The Eddie celebrated 25 years today but incredibly the event has only been run 7 times in the past 24 years as it requires wave heights of at least 20 feet in size during the one month holding period.
For me one of the waves of the day was by Hawaiian charger Jamie O’Brien – taking off on something in the region of 35+ft you could hardly see him due to the massive wave in front but as that died down we saw him virtually overtaken by 2 stories of white wash, only to emerge, blasting out of the whitewater, jumping lips on the face and then pushing through the chop to negotiate the 10 foot beachbreak before it closed out. The crowd went nuts and although Jamie didn’t make the final, his wave will surely feature in the highlight reels.
Congratulations to Greg Long who was a deserved winner and consistently charged on some of the biggest waves of the day. Let’s hope Waimea turns it on again next year so we don’t have to wait another 5 years for the next event!
