Thomas VanMelum | Pipeline 2011

Our good friend, Thomas, participated in the pipeline body surfing contest last month. Thomas is a Wedge guy, and signed up for the Pipeline contest, having never even been to Hawaii.

It was bound to be either a smashing success or a huge dose of humble pie.

Fortunately for Thomas, his years at Wedge served him well. He somehow scored one of only 2 10-point waves of the contest. (sequence below) Photos: www.gregrimagery.com

He racked up the highest combined score in the history of the contest, before being surpassed by Mike Stewart 5 minutes later.

And possibly most excitingly, he connected with the Malloys, as they're working on their new bodysurfing film, Come Hell or High Water.

Garret McNamara at pipeline with Roy Stuart's 13' Ghost

The mighty Ghost 13 at Pipeline with Garrett McNamara, showing the beautifully efficient lines characteristic of  the extreme pintailed 'Future Primitive' designs with their  spherical/elliptical rocker, continuous 50/50 rail section and thin parallel profile.



Photograph by  Ian & Erick Regnard  @ Tungsten: 



tungsten at photoshelter

The 13 footer leaves for Hawaii

After 10 months on the New Zealand olo hikoi and a couple of months lurking back in the olosurfer shop the 13 foot Future Primitive surfboard heads off to Randy Rarick's place on the North Shore of Oahu via Honolulu. It was a four hour drive to get her to the Air New Zealand Cargo office.Once there the board will be surfed by all comers for the duration of the winter, hopefully in some big waves and some hollow ones at pipeline. Perhaps someone will win the Eddie Aikau memorial big wave contest on her.Bonga Perkins is rumoured to have offered to ride the board for US$200, or was he offering to pay for the experience ?