IT WAS insane. It was the World Cup, the gold medal, the Nobel Prize of
surfing. In January this year a bunch of Californian surfers risked life and
limb to ride 18-metre waves in the open sea.
It was an astonishing feat. Not just because no one had ever surfed waves
this big, but because, until now, surfers didn鈥檛 even know how to find them.
These five-storey-high monsters occur once in a thousand days. And they break
some 160 miles from land, at Cortes Bank, a violent patch of water lying over a
barely submerged mountain range in the ocean off Southern California. There鈥檚 no
land in sight鈥攜ou certainly wouldn鈥檛 see the swell from your beach hut,
let alone get out there in time for the ride. And yet the surfers were ready and
waiting in mid-ocean, boards waxed and delighted grins plastered all over their
tanned faces. They could hardly believe their luck鈥攅xcept it wasn鈥檛 luck
that got them there. It was the new science of surfing.
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The search for a beach with the perfect 鈥渂reak鈥� used to take dedication, good
intelligence networks and the sort of free time enjoyed only by the habitually
unemployed. Even with the arrival of Internet wave forecasts and webcams sited
at favourite surf spots, people still spent more time surfing online than on
waves. Now, however, oceanographers, mathematicians and coastal engineers have
learned how to pinpoint the perfect wave.
It all started when Robert Dalrymple鈥檚 team at the University of Delaware
developed a computer program to help engineers design better harbours. The idea
was to prevent big waves from forming as water moves into the shallower areas.
Dalrymple鈥檚 program can also help engineers alter coastlines to reduce wave
erosion.
The area of the sea being examined is divided into three-dimensional cells
whose size depends on the resolution needed. Each cell is given parameters such
as swell height, direction and frequency of the waves, and how far they are
above the seafloor. When the program runs it follows mathematical equations that
describe how waves rise, break and fall, producing a picture of the ocean under
the conditions you鈥檝e specified. By altering the slope of the ocean floor, or
the width of a harbour entrance, engineers can find the conditions that will
stop big waves growing and crashing onto moored boats or vulnerable cliffs.
But if big waves are your reason for living, the program can also tell you
exactly what conditions to look for and where to find them. Surfer and coastal
engineer Andrew Raichle took Dalrymple鈥檚 program and used it to model
Mavericks鈥攁 monster wave site in the centre of California鈥檚
coastline鈥攖o see what conditions would produce the biggest waves. Soon
afterwards, National Geographic magazine commissioned Dalrymple to use
the software to model Jaws, the surfer鈥檚 paradise on the Hawaiian island of
Maui. Dalrymple鈥檚 program showed that a submerged triangular ridge creates the
gigantic waves at Jaws. The ridge is situated so deep underwater that it has no
effect on small and moderately sized swells. But when an extraordinarily large
swell arrives, it 鈥渇eels鈥� the ridge, activating the monster surf conditions.
鈥淚t鈥檚 like a magnifying glass,鈥� Dalrymple says. Running the model under varying
conditions can tell you what combination of weather, tides, wind and daylight
will provide the perfect surfing opportunity.
A similar magnifying mechanism is at work at Cortes Bank, Dalrymple
says鈥攁nd it produces even bigger waves. Surfers have long yearned to ride
the behemoths at Cortes Bank, but with a 160-mile trek out there, and a less
than favourable chance of getting the timing right, it used to be pretty much a
fool鈥檚 errand.
Not any more. Surfer and photographer Larry Moore has spent the past ten
years flying out to Cortes Bank to gather data on the sort of weather conditions
that make its waves flare up. When he had gathered his data, Moore teamed up
with Sean Collins, a forecaster for surf website Swell.com to pinpoint the
combination of tidal, meteorological and wave conditions that would turn Cortes
Bank into surf heaven. Once that was done, they gathered a team of big-wave
surfers and photographers, got financial backing from Surfing magazine
and Swell.com, and began to watch the weather. They monitored satellite
meteorological data, local buoy data and regional conditions, looking for the
perfect combination.
And on 18 January, all the right parameters鈥攃alm conditions and a huge
swell from the north Pacific鈥攂egan to converge. Moore gave the thumbs up
and the team boarded a fishing boat in San Clemente harbour and journeyed all
night. Cortes Bank appeared on the boat鈥檚 radar just before dawn: a swathe of
blips that would have made any other vessel turn tail and flee. The surfers,
however, cheered. The radar blips were colossal waves rising up from the surface
of the ocean.
Mike Parsons caught the first wave at dawn. It was 18 metres tall and moving
at around 40 knots. You can鈥檛 paddle fast enough to get onto a wave like
that鈥攜ou have to be towed by a jet ski. Evan Slater, editor of Swell.com,
did try paddling onto a wave, but had to abandon his board and dive deep
underwater to avoid being churned by the mammoth grinding walls of water. People
have drowned under smaller waves.
They headed back to shore in the late afternoon, after the party had spent an
exhilarating day playing on the biggest waves anyone has ever surfed. But Moore
is still not satisfied. Based on what he has seen from the air, and what the
Pacific Ocean can dish out in terms of storm swells, Cortes Bank waves can get a
lot bigger than 18 metres, he says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the scary thing,鈥� says surfer Ken
Collins. 鈥淲hat we got out there was only about 70 per cent of what it could
产别.鈥�
The adrenaline-crazed big-wave surfers are already restless, their eyes glued
to the flickering screens of their laptops. Somewhere out there, as tick follows
tock, another giant wave is about to be tamed by the almighty science of surf.