Banzai Pipeline

BANZAI PIPELINE

Pipeline is known to many as one of the most well known areas to surf big waves. All throughout the year competitions are held to see who can ride and survive this wave with the professionals tackling the rough surf during the winter period.


Pipeline has crowned champions and broken boards since the sixties. 

• Pipeline is rough and full of power for a number of reasons. Pipeline breaks over shallow water onto a lava reef which is full of holes that a board or body can be smashed into, it's extremely fast with a critical take off meaning that if your drop in is not perfect you can find yourself at the bottom of the wave with loads of energy about to come crashing down on you.

• The big waves which are normally associated with pipeline only occur during the Northern Hemisphere's winter, often tourists who visit Pipeline during the Northern Hemisphere summer are expecting to see 15-20 ft waves instead they see 1-2ft calm rolling waves. To really experience the wrath of Pipeline you need to visit during the colder months, October, November, December, January and February.

• On the rare perfect days when widely spaced west swells roll in and once groomed by light off-shore trade winds result in a surfer's paradise; a clean vertical drop into a wide open tube that over the reef and exhausts itself over Ehukai's soft sand.

• Three sections make up the infamous Pipeline reef system, all of which play a role in the many personalities associated with Pipeline. The 1st reef is the launching pad for surfing's most hair raising moments. The second and third reefs act more as indicators of major approaching swells for surfers trying to get in before the wave wave jacks on the first reef.

Banzai Pipeline has become famous due to large and terrifying waves which hit the North Shore of Ohau during the winter season. The Pipeline waves have created champions and defeated champions, when riding the big waves at Pipeline you are tempting death and if you succeed in surviving you have cheated death.