Swell's Coming, Where's The Next Big Wave Contest Going To Be?
With a large, northwest swell bearing down on Hawaii, last week the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational went on yellow alert and was looking to possibly run this week. Organizers have backed off the call and on Monday competitors were told to stand down and that the contest would not run.
There has also been talk about running the Jaws Big Wave Challenge on Maui, as well as the Thriller At Killers at Todos Santos in Baja Mexico. If you’re a big-wave competitor trying to figure out where to be and when, the Pacific Ocean’s going to be keeping you on your toes this week.
The challenge with a swell for the Eddie at Waimea Bay is that it has to arrive at just the right time to provide a full day’s worth of big surf. More than one running of the Eddie have been thwarted by a swell that showed up in the middle of the night, and this may have been one of those instances. Winds are also forecast to be problematic both at Waimea and over at Jaws. So far the WSL hasn’t made any noise about running the Jaws Big Wave Challenge, which is probably a good indicator that it’s also a no-go.
That leaves the Thriller at Killers. After the swell moves past Hawaii it will head to the West Coast, first hitting Maverick’s before heading south to Baja Mexico. This Sunday, February 18, is forecast to be over 30-foot at Todos, which is plenty of size to run the event. And with a smaller field of competitors, unlike the Eddie, the contest can run in about three hours.
“Models are in sound agreement a significant storm developing just north of Hawaii through the middle of this week will deliver sizeable swell starting Sunday and continuing into the middle of the following week. Conditions look suspect,” reports Surfline. “A caveat — the models have been all over the place with the storms along the West Coast this weekend into next week, so specifics will remain a moving target for the next several+ days. That said, solid swell looks pretty locked in right now.”
The Todos event may ultimately fall victim to the winds and conditions like the other contests in Hawaii, but at this stage in the came, if a big wave contest is going to run, it seems likely Killers would be the spot.
Big Wave Contest Returns To Mexico's Todos Santos
With more than 25 years of writing about surfing, the ocean and action sports, Jake Howard continues to share stories, profiles and issues that shape the surfing world. One of the premier subject-matter experts in the field today, he's savvy in the ways of print, digital and social media, his breadth of work is expansive. Getting his start writing Surfline surf reports and recording the phone reports for 976-SURF in the late '90s, Jake served as the managing editor for Surfer Magazine in the early 2000s before moving on to launch RedBullSurfing.com and cover surfing for ESPN and the X Games. Over the years, Jake has also enjoyed time behind the edit desk at The Surfer's Journal, as well as the World Surf League, where he worked as the Senior Editor for a number of years. Beyond producing editorial content, Jake has served as a digital marketer and copywriter for iconic surf brands such as Quiksilver, Roxy and Rip Curl. Writing thousands of pages of copy for Surfline, he has deep SEO experience as well. The surf columnist for the San Clemente Times, Jake continues to dedicate himself to the culture and history of the sport through his involvement with the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center in San Clemente.