April Fools Mega-Swell in Santa Cruz

Jaipal · Joined: 06 Apr 2002 Posts: 64 Location: Maui

Here is a brief story about our April Fools Mega Swell. http://americanwindsurfingtour.com/2012/04/the-april-fools-mega-swell/

As far as I know it was the first time windsurfing was shut down in Santa Cruz completely due to size. It was truly amazing.

I also want to take the opportunity to plug the AWT again. The crew are really looking forward to coming back and ripping it up. One can only imagine what it would have been like if they were here on the 1st.

Finally, thanks to E-Dub for the photo of Waddell at size.

Cheers,

-J

attila · Joined: 21 Apr 2000 Posts: 17

Hey Jaipal:
Got lucky at Princeton Jetty that day. Head high fun was had by 4 lucky sailors. 2 kiters that went out to Mavricks while we were out. They were a long ways off shore so hard to tell how close to the peak they were riding. Gotta hand it to those guys in any event. Fools or serious watermen I'd like to know.

Jaipal · Joined: 06 Apr 2002 Posts: 64 Location: Maui

Hey Attila. Yeah, I heard you guys were up there. That's way cool.

There were kiters out here too. Including Davenport. But, from what I could see they were away from the main peaks and more near the mast high stuff.

Not taking anything away from them at all though. It took serious "balls" to be out there. (Balls used colloquially since a few of them may have been women.) They were on it for sure and that was impressive.

-J

wavezz · Joined: 20 Jun 2007 Posts: 22

Jaipal,

Of the hundred or so Cruzian expert kiters, there were 3 or 4 that ventured out. Photo take from the highway overlook has to be really zoomed up to appreciate the enormous size of this swell. Vantage is 250(?) ft up on the cliff face off the Hwy, above the Scott overlook. Kite lines are 27m, so that's a 100 ft yardstick. I am certain there are > 35+ ft faces in these photos.
Don't know his name, Waddell regular, said 'seriously scary', about heading out. There was no clear channel, just stacked up.

Check out these pics closely. Pretty rad. Some shots going out, and one has the bottom turn on *large* face. I did not crop these down more, to get a sense of size - but, to see the action you have to zoom up fair amount. Hey, not perfect but it was just Droid phone.

IE browser and Mozilla you can zoom it with shift-ctrl-Plus .

Jaipal · Joined: 06 Apr 2002 Posts: 64 Location: Maui

Awesome! Those are great photos.

Hard to believe it was only a week ago today.

-J

pirireis · Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 177

I was out surfing last week and had to be super careful about sites. I had to sit out Sunday due to size.