Teahupo'o Big Empty
© Ryan Miller
Surfing

The birth of Teahupo’o and the event that nearly wasn’t

A look at the history of the most infamous wave in the world, and how the World Tour event held there today nearly wasn’t…
Written by Mimi LaMontagne
7 min readPublished on
Tahiti’s Teahupo’o (pronounced Chop-pu) is one of the heaviest waves in the world. Nestled on the southwest corner of Tahiti’s smaller dormant volcano, Tahiti Iti, Teahupo’o is a small and quiet village that has retained much of its native culture.
Hundreds and perhaps thousands of years ago, freshwater flowed down from the mountains behind Teahupo’o and eroded the reef – creating what is now known as Passe Havea, the location where the paved road ends in the town and dirt tracks begin. Because of this, Teahupo’o is now commonly known as “The End of the Road”.

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The monstrous wave itself forms as the ocean swell bends and races along the reef – it’s drastic shape and pitch formed when the wave leaves a gently sloping bottom and is hurled towards a dry reef. In order for a surfer to successfully surf a wave at Teahupo’o, one must actually take off UNDER the lip to avoid being launched. That’s how heavily it heaves itself towards the live coral below.

The late 1900s and the very first ride

Up until the late 1900s, the locals of Teahupo’o watched this monster form outside their homes when swell rolled in each year – but no one thought of attempting to surf it. Then, in 1985, Tahitian Thierry Vernaudon and a few other locals began the 15-minute paddle out and surfed Teahupo’o for the very first time. The swell that they surfed wasn’t anything close to what we now know as Teahupo’o – the thick, heaving wave that terrifies all. Teahupo’o was still, essentially, a secret.

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English +1

Then just the following year, bodyboarders Mike Stewart and Ben Severson found themselves crossing the bridge at the End of the Road – and they were the first to really showcase, if only to their mates, the potential of Teahupo’o. Through whispers and tall tales, the wave became a meeting ground for the underground hellman of the bodyboard world.

The entrance of professional surfing

It wasn’t until 1997 that Teahupo’o was truly showcased to the world. Up until that point there had been some footage, but not much, and what was available didn’t scrape the surface of possibility. Then the ASP World Tour decided to journey to Tahiti to compete at this fabled slab.
Unfortunately they didn’t find what they were looking for… and the contest of Teahupo’o almost never was.

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A season of heavy barrels at Teahupo'o

Filmmaker Ryan Moss spent the better part of the winter season in the channel at Teahupo'o, filming one epic swell after another. This is the final product.

“We came here in 1997 to run the first event,” says Steve Robertson, who was the ASP Australasian Manager at the time. Steve was the man put in charge of running the event. “And it was a disaster.”
“The surf was terrible. The weather was terrible. We were using a big ferry boat for the Beach Marshall, and when there was a drastic wind change in the middle of the day the ferry was blown up onto the reef causing thousands of dollars in damage. Then mid-event, the organisers up and left us because they ran out of money.”
This left Steve and the rest of the ASP crew to bankroll the prize money, and they nearly went broke in the process. “It was a terrible experience,” Steve said. “And we decided that we weren’t going to come back.”

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A second chance at Teahupo'o

But then, out of the blue, the Tahitian government calls Steve and says that as long as the ASP shows them the bills that were footed during the disaster, they would pay everything back. And they did.
“Then,” continues Steve, “then they plead for us to return and run the event in 1998.”
So the ASP went back to Teahupo’o the following year, ready and roaring to run the Gotcha Pro at Teahupo’o – and were greeted once again with disaster.
“It was the same old story – terrible weather, terrible surf – and the government was doing everything they could to welcome us, but at the end of the day, the ocean was still flat.”
Halfway through the event and just about everyone was nervous, worried that they wouldn’t actually be able to complete the competition. Just about everyone, that is, except Raimana Van Bastolaer and Vetea Poto David, legends and locals at Teahupo’o. “The waves will come shortly, do not worry,” Raimana said, over and over.
And it turns out, they did.

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The moment that changed surfing forever

“We got up the next morning and it was like nothing I’d ever seen in my life,” says Steve. “Richie Porta, the Head Judge at the time, was with me when we first saw it at daybreak. We couldn’t believe what we saw. It was one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever felt.
“It was easily 12-foot, but it wasn’t the size that worried us. The sheer power was unbelievable, and completely uncharted territory for an event. We thought, ‘Can we really run and make these guys go out in this surf?’ We had a really good field of surfers (it was a WQS 6-Star at the time) and it was just too perfect to call it off. We knew we could do it. So we did.”
The Gotcha Pro ran for three days and every day was incredible. Imagery went everywhere, and suddenly, it was an insanely successful event.
Teahupo’o, Tahiti

Teahupo’o, Tahiti

© Domenic Mosqueira

“If the Tahitian government and the Tahitian Surf Federation, particularly Pascall Luciani and the Tahitian Water Patrol of that time (of which many are still on that team) hadn’t pushed so hard and been so willing to help, we wouldn’t have come back.
“That year, and for four years after, we scored incredible surf. It was so big and so powerful that the tower was knocked down three years in a row. I remember having drinks, sitting on the beach at the end of a long day during that first successful contest, and as we sat there looking out to sea, we saw the tower get knocked over right in front of us. It took Chris O’Callahan and Bobby David, two guys who understood the wave and location really well, to finally figure out how to make a tower that could withstand giant swells. They were instrumental in that.

Looking forward, and the importance of Teahupo'o's discovery

Teahupo’o is a freak of nature. It’s almost like God’s gift to surfing. The light is generally perfect from dawn to dusk, the wave is incredibly powerful and then there’s this crack in the reef where media boats can bob. Surfers come out of the tube and straight towards the cameras. It’s a mind-blowing phenomenon of nature, and once surfing discovered its existence, there was no going back.
But, to get those moments captured, a lot is at stake. And for the first few years of Teahupo’o’s real existence in the competitive surfing world, not everyone was keen to go.
“Richie Porta and I were the ones that had to make the call back then — which I’m not even sure we were qualified to do, because we definitely wouldn’t have paddled out — but we always figured that about 25% of the surfers revelled in it, 25% were okay with it, and half of them didn’t want anything to do with it. I reckon those numbers have skewed a lot in favour of those who are keen, but I do still think that there’s some small part of the field that hopes the event is over and done with before a big swell comes.

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Teahupo'o in motion with Carlos Burle and Maya Gabeira

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“But that’s the thing. We’re here for a major swell, and injuries aren’t surprising out there because it’s a critical wave. That’s why we’ve spent a lot of money and time coming up with what we reckon is the best risk management plan you can get. Injuries are a reality out there. And our response plan, between the WSL and the Tahitians, has morphed into something very complex, extensive, complicated and, above all, necessary.”
Surfing needs events like Teahupo’o. Heart stopping. Adrenaline pumping. Critical. Surreal. Surfing needs a whole array of events, but something like Teahupo’o? It’s crucial. It’s crucial because it’s spectacular, and that’s what surfing needs.
Although it may have taken some time to get to the End of the Road, it was well and truly worth it.