Towing in ... the first step

Author: Peter Lambert

11th October 2006

Co-authored by: James Moolenschot

Today we are buzzing with stoke. Monday afternoon after tens of thousands of Rands spent, numerous disappointing missions and many hours of climbing a steep learning curve ... it all finally paid off ...

James Moolenschot picks up the story: "Peter Lambert and I had been watching the predicted 7m swell due on Monday for the whole week, and risking the wrath of our bosses we bailed on work responsibilities for the day to take our chances with King Neptune. With Mike Dei-Cont as our third man, we blazed out from Kommetjie on the rubber duck to check out Sunset Reef which was super crowded with all the tow surfers. To avoid the zoo, we buzzed around the corner to the outer banks at Dunes (Noordhoek) where I pulled Peter into a few 12 footer swells which weren’t breaking too hard or consistently on that size swell, but showed us just how early you could get into waves... after a couple of attempts out there we decided to mission back to Sunsets. By this time only one ski was still out and after watching it for about half an hour and getting friendly with the remaining tow guys, we decided to hit it."

With James being the default driver and Peter being the default guinea pig, we made a few dodgy attempts to pull Peter into a set. After a flurry of tactical discussions and some vital pointers from the tow guys, we finally got it together ... "James whipped me in pretty hard" Peter recounts, "and I was just getting flung around like a skimming stone on the swell ... at this point I would like re-iterate James's comments that no one should be under any illusions as to how painfully uncomfortable it is to be towed on a booger ... eventually I couldn't take the abuse any longer and let go ... Once my brain stopped shaking in my head, I found myself planning on the top of this mountain ... racing towards shore as fast as I could, just trying to stay on it ... for ages, just cruising and cruising... eventually the wave started to connect with the reef and transformed from a choppy beast to a smoother monster mountain ... I was just dropping in, trying as hard as possible to keep the rail in the water ... it was not even close to anything I have ever ridden before, it just felt so powerful and ominous. by the time I was half way down I had managed to get the rail in the water but I was pretty deep, just gunning for the channel, turning with all my strength... then came the sound of a billion tons of water with the barrel right behind me ... I held on for dear life and eventually got away with it, and managed to ride the wave all way into to the channel ..." After discussions James and Mike estimate that first wave must have been 3 stories high, 4 times overhead or an 18 foot face. Whatever scale you want to use it was big.

I got a couple more, but nothing like the first one, which was so deep. James, who has charged the big stuff since we where kids was super amped so we pulled him into a few bombs on the boogie, with one long ride and one where he actually pulled into a super deep barrel and got mashed ... Sadly for James I am a fairly conservative rescuer and he took a coupe on the pip on the inside, before Mike and I managed to pluck up the courage to go and fetch him from the impact zone.

The mission was awesome ... my eyes are wide open to the possibilities, and I couldn't be more stoked. James says that there’s nothing quite like the feeling of gunning a boat along a monster wave while watching your buddy screaming along in the pocket behind you...

Sadly no pictures or footage ... that's Murphy's Law ... but next time. Mike is hatching a cunning plan to get some sick images of our next mission!!!!!!

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