Biggest Teahupoo Ever, Shot on the PHANTOM CAMERA 13 November 2015 – Posted in: Surfing – Tags:

This day at Teahupoo- Aug 27th 2011 during the Billabong Pro waiting period is what many are calling the biggest and gnarliest Teahupoo ever ridden. Chris Bryan was fortunate enough to be there working for Billabong on a day that will go down in the history of big wave surfing. The French Navy labeled this day a double code red prohibiting and threatening to arrest anyone that entered the water.

Kelly Slater described the day by saying “witnessing this was a draining feeling being terrified for other people’s lives all day long, it’s life or death. Letting go of that rope one time can change your life and not many people will ever experience that in their life.”
All images where shot by Chris Bryan using the Phantom HD Gold camera. To see more of Chris’ work check out his website. WWW.CHRISBRYANFILMS.COM

Teahupoʻo (Te-a-hu-po-o, popular pronunciation is CHO-PO[1]) is a village on the south-west coast of the island of Tahiti, French Polynesia, southern Pacific Ocean.[2] It is known for the surf break and heavy, glassy waves offshore, often reaching 2 to 3 m (6.6 to 9.8 ft), and sometimes up to 7 meters (23 feet). It is the site of the annual Billabong Pro Tahiti surf competition, part of the World Championship Tour (WCT) of the Association of Surfing Professionals World Tour surfing circuit and used to be one stop in the World Tour of the International Bodyboarding Association.[3] Bodyboarding pioneers Mike Stewart and Ben Severson were the first to surf Teahupo’o in 1986 and it soon became an underground spot for thrill-seeking bodyboarders. Few professional surfers rode Teahupo’o during the early 1990s and it was only in 1998, at the Gotcha Tahiti Pro, that Teahupo’o became widely recognized as having some of the heaviest waves in the world. On August 17, 2000 Laird Hamilton is credited with surfing the “heaviest wave” ever ridden,[2] documented in the film Riding Giants. In 2003 the late Malik Joyeux successfully rode one of the largest waves ever ridden.

On October 31, 2008 surfer Ian Walsh towed the biggest Teahupoʻo wave of the season. Video footage of this ride was later used in a Red Bull energy drink ad campaign seen around the world.

Keala Kennelly was the first woman to tow-surf Teahupo’o in May 2005, getting a 10-foot barrel ahead of the Billabong Tahiti Pro contest.[4]

This challenging break has been conquered by many top windsurfers, including Jason Polakow and Levi Siver. Yannick Salmon was the first kitesurfer to ride Teahupo’o, however, it was incorrectly written in publications that others had ridden it before him. Jeremie Eloy and Julien Sudrat kitesurfed the wave after Yannick.