Six of the Best Waves

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Six of the Best Waves

Sacha Specker

Six of the Best Waves

by Glen Ferris, 19/05/2011

With trips to Australia and Peru behind them, the folks on the IBA World Tour are gearing up for their next adventure at the Arica Chilean Challenge - home of the terrifying El Gringo wave. In homage to the awesome power of this natural phenomenon, we got to thinking about six of the best, baddest, and deadliest waves in the world...

Most dangerous: El Gringo

Known to the Chilean locals at 'Flopos', El Gringo is an intimidating site and well deserving of the reverence paid to it by professionals from around the world. Due to host the next round of the IBA World Tour, it's described by former Arica Chilean Challenge champ Jeff Hubbard as one of the deadliest in the world. “You talk about dangerous waves, the Arica wave is the most dangerous wave on tour, in my opinion,” say Jeff. “It’s cold water, so that makes the waves much heavier and the waves just wraps into these dray, shallow, jagged rocks at both ends. I think the people who push it and take that out of their minds and go for it are the ones who are going to excel.”

Most remote: Vilcanota River

Peruvian surfer Gabriel Villaran is used to going that extra mile to find a special wave, but he really outdid himself when he trekked 3,000 metres above sea level to the Vilcanota River, just outside Cusco deep in the heart of the Andes for a spot of static surfing. “The stretch of river here is spectacular, big waves right in the middle of mountains and jungle,” said Gabriel. “It was funny seeing the locals react to me and my surfboard, they thought I was totally insane!”

Most innovative: The Panama Canal

The 77km man-made marvel that is the Panama Canal wouldn’t immediately strike you as a prime spot for a bit of surfing. But when you consider the size of the waves created by the huge vessels taking advantage of the shortcut that joins the Atlantic to the Pacific, you begin to understand why Gary Saavedra would want to give it a shot. The 13-time Panama national surf champion made such a successful stab at riding the waves, in fact, that he smashed two Guinness world records - one for the longest time sufing a non-static wave and a second for the longest distance travelled on the same wave on open water.

Most unlikely: the Severn Bore

You’d hardly expect to find a great wave on a sleepy English river, but every now and again such a place is home to swells that reach up to 2.8 metres high. The Severn Bore, a natural by-product of the incoming tide being funnelled up the narrowing Severn Estuary, can see four-star waves and average speeds of 10mph. The Severn Bore was apparently first surfed by Second World War veteran Jack Churchill, a military cross awardee renowned for being the only Allied soldier to kill an enemy with a longbow!

Most deadly: Jaws

The waves in Hawaii are renowned as being some of the most intense in the world but one in particular is deadly. Just ask pro-windsurfer Jason Polakow, who was almost claimed by the awesome might of Peahi - or Jaws - in Oahu. The two-time PWA world champion had a miraculous escape after wiping out and being held under by three huge waves for more than a minute. Eventually, he resurfaced and later exclaimed: “I don’t understand how I’m still alive. I saw myself dying. I just got pinned in a really bad situation. Even though I’ve had really bad wipeouts in the past I’ve always come up before the second wave. I got a three-wave hold-down and it was just gnarly. I’m so lucky to be here, I really am.”

Biggest: Bristol Motor Speedway

Okay, so it’s not a wave in the usual watery sense but there’s no denying the awesome spectacle of 157,574 pairs of arms flapping in perfectly choreographed unison around the ½ mile Bristol Motor Speedway track in Bristol, Tennessee. It was such a feat, in fact, that it’s been marked in history as the largest Mexican wave ever performed.