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THE PERFECT WAVE


THE PERFECT WAVE


HOW TAHITI'S LOCATION AND SEAFLOOR HELP CREATE ONE OF THE WORLD'S BEST
SPOTS TO SURF.

By Travis Hartman and Lincoln Feast
Photos by Thomas Bevilacqua
Published July 23

While most 2024 Olympians will be battling for glory in Paris, the world's best
surfers will be going for gold 16,000km away on Tahiti, where the spinning blue
barrels of Teahupo'o might be the real star of the show.

A potent mix of beauty and brutality, Teahupo’o has been the venue for many of
surfing’s most exciting contests and some of the sport’s seminal moments since
it was revealed to the wider world in the 1990s.

Teahupo'o, which loosely translates as “Pile of Heads” or “Wall of Skulls” after
a gruesome local legend, was picked to stage the Olympic competition because the
beaches in France are mostly flat this time of year.

Huge winter storms in the South Pacific near New Zealand generate swells of up
to 15m that travel thousands of kilometres before lurching out of the deep onto
a shallow reef at “The End of the Road”, as Teahupo’o is also known.

Bora Bora

Taha’a

Huahine

Raiatea

Pacific Ocean

Morea

Tahiti

30 km

Teahupo’o

©

OpenStreetMap contributors

A map showing a string of islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with the
island of Tahiti at the far right and the town of Teahupo’o on the southern edge
of Tahiti.

Note: Only major islands shown

A large trench carved by fresh water running off the jungle-clad mountains
provides an incredibly close and relatively safe spot for spectator boats.

While the biggest waves rise some 10m and are not as tall as those in Portugal's
Nazare or Hawaii's Peahi, the explosive power, giant tubes and sheer volume of
water set Teahupo'o apart as a hydrodynamic freak of nature.

A video showing how the mountainous interior of Tahiti catches rainwater and
creates rivers to the ocean. One river funnels water down through the town of
Teahupo’o and has created a deep channel in the reef off the coast of the
island. This channel, combined with the way the reef shelf has evolved over many
thousands of years, creates a wave that is such a powerful moving wall of water
that it was thought to be unsurfable until the 80’s. The undersea geography
combines to create a huge wall of water that barrels over at the last minute to
create what many consider to be the heaviest wave in the world.


While Italo Ferreira and Carissa Moore carved and spun their way to gold in the
murky, typhoon-churned waves of Japan's Shidashita beach for surfing’s debut at
the Tokyo Olympics, Teahupo'o breaks perfectly over a coral reef and is renowned
for its heavy, hollow tubes.

“It's a totally different wave,” said Lucca Mesinas, who represented Peru in
Tokyo and has also qualified for Paris 2024.


WAVES CHANGE AS THEY NEAR LAND

Waves travel across oceans easily and become surfable only when they near shore
and crash. But the shape they take is in large part a reflection of the seafloor
underneath.

BEACH BREAK

REEF BREAK

OPEN OCEAN

In the open ocean, waves don’t move water so much as give evidence of energy
moving through the water. It is not until this energy reaches shallow water that
the wave interacts with the ocean floor and begins to break in the surf zone.

A gentle sloping sandy bottom will generally create waves that are suited for
learning to surf and performing manoeuvres like cutbacks and aerials along a
wave face that is not too steep. The 2020 Olympics were held at the beach break
of Shidashita outside Tokyo.

A reef can create a very steep and abrupt change in direction for the wave
energy, resulting in a wave that heaves out of the water and barrels as it folds
over on itself. The best of these waves are almost mechanical, with consistent
and similar waves produced. Teahupo'o is regarded as a perfect reef break.

A graphic showing cross sections of three waves and how the seafloor helps to
create the shape of the waves as they break.:end

“Japan was a beach break and a lot of wind. It was a really hard wave to surf.
And Tahiti is just an amazing island with a perfect lefthander.”

“It usually is barrelling, so it's a super nice wave. It can be really big too,
and it can be really strong.”

A video annotating Tahitian local Vahine Fierro as she drops into a double
overhead wave during a recent competition. Surfers will get up to 35kph (20 mph)
on a wave in Teahupo’o and points at this location are given for being deep
inside a barrel which raises the chance the wave will close out on top of them.

Video courtesy World Surf League

“Hosting the Olympics at Teahupo'o is the best spot they could ever pick just
because it's such a good wave at that time of the year,” said local Vahine
Fierro, who won the world professional tour’s Tahiti Pro in pumping waves in
May.

“It’s hard to describe - you need to live it to feel what I am talking about.
But paddling into a wave as hard as you can, not knowing if you’re going to make
the drop or not because it is so hollow, getting into this big blue tube that
just feels like time is stopping, and then coming out with the spit of the wave
in your back, into the boats that are right there - it’s just indescribable and
the best feeling in the world.”

In this blue barrel . . .

Competing at big Teahupo'o can be as much about battling fear as battling an
opponent. Swinging and padding into a giant blue wall and making the drop is the
first step. Pulling into the barrel, managing board speed to avoid the plunging
lip and negotiate the dangerous foam ball is a fine line.

. . . Gold medals are found

Turns at Teahupo'o are not given the same scoring emphasis as at other
locations. That means getting deep and emerging from the tube anointed with a
blast of compressed air and water - the spit - will guarantee a big number and a
shot of adrenalin that's hard to match.

a series of photographs showing surfers at different aspects of the surfing
process, the takeoff, being deep in the barrel, and wiping out.


THE FOLLOWING PROPERTIES ARE OPTIONAL AND CAN BE DELETED.

The Olympics surfing competition will take place at Teahupo’o from July
27-August 5. The schedule includes potential lay-days for when conditions are
unsuitable with poor winds or if the waves are too small … or too big. A total
of 48 surfers (24 men and 24 women) from 21 countries will be competing, with
traditional surfing powerhouses the United States, Australia and Brazil likely
to be among the medals. Host nation France will also be a strong contender with
two local Tahitians in their team of four.

Sources

French Hydrographic Office (SHOM); Satellite image ©2024 Maxar Technologies,
Surfing video courtesy World Surf League; Reuters reporting

All photos by

Thomas Bevilacqua / REUTERS

Additional development by

Sudev Kiyada

Edited by

Julia Wolfe and Tom Hogue


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