Shipsterns Bluff: A retrospective glance at the session of the season from some of the key players - Andy Irons, Joel Parkinson and Laurie Towner.
Photos ©Stuart Gibson
Watch the Shipsterns Bluff video now!
Discuss Laurie Towner's moxy on the SURFER magazine discussion forum message board. “I was hanging out with Joel a lot when I was over there for the contest [2006 Quiksilver Pro Australia]. I went over to his house for a barbeque, and he was like, ‘I’m going to Tasmania, this swell looks like it’s going to be sick.’ He showed me the satellite images on the Internet, and I was like, ‘Sure, I’ll go. I’d like to go.’ And then we both lost in the contest and he came up to me and said, ‘Fuck it, the swell got even bigger.’” — Andy Irons “We got there late Friday night, like 11 o’clock, Margo [Brenden Margieson] and this abalone diver guy Paul set it up. Didn’t get much sleep, maybe five or six hours. Up before light, had a quick bowl of cereal and got into our wetsuits. We didn’t know it, but it was like an hour and a half boat ride to the break. So, we’re in our wetsuits before we got on the boat and stayed in them until we got home at like 5 or 6 that night.” — Joel Parkinson “When we get there we see the backs of these waves, and it looked f---ing big. There were some local kids towing already, then a couple sets came in from way outside and started spitting really hard. That’s when I was like, ‘Whoa, it’s solid.’” — Andy Irons “It looked like there were a few we could paddle into. We got on it straightaway.” —Laurie Towner “I jumped straight in, just like, ‘I’m out there.’ I got a couple nice little inside warm-up ones, it was nice and glassy, a few 8-footers, but then it just got bigger and bigger all day. By the afternoon it was massive.” — Joel Parkinson “I sat in the boat for a little bit, like 15 minutes, to see what the wave was doing. There were some really heavy ones coming through. Laurie broke two boards in a half-hour, so he had to go sit on the boat and watch and wait for the ski. I paddled into waves for almost two hours with Luke Egan’s board that I borrowed, then broke it and started using Dylan [Longbottom]’s and Parko’s boards, kind of switching off. We had the tow board on rotation. Everyone was getting like three waves each and it would take about a half-hour, so it wouldn’t take that long to get your turn. After a while some guys were over it so you could double-time it and get a lot of waves.” — Andy Irons “I was the youngest and had to wait for everybody to get their turn on the ski. I was just sitting out in the lineup and was lucky enough to be in the right spot at the right time. I wasn’t even going to go on that wave. I paddled a bit to take a look over the ledge, then I thought it might just let me in. So I paddled a bit harder.” —Laurie Towner “That’s got to be the biggest paddle-in barrel ever. Vertically, from the wall of the wave at the bottom to the lip at the top, that’s like f---in’ 40 feet. It’s unbelievable. The wave when he paddles in is only like 10 feet. Where I was sitting was right where the lip got huge. If I had tried to paddle for it I would have died. He was in the perfect spot.” — Andy Irons “How ridiculous is that thing? It’s just so scary. I don’t think he realized what he’d done. We were just like, ‘F---!’ That’s going to change everything for him. That’s the biggest wave ever paddled into out there, maybe the biggest in Australia.” — Joel Parkinson “There’s nothing perfect about Shipstern’s. When you’re out at Teahupoo you know you can take off on almost anything because just about the same wave is coming at you every time. Not this place. Every f---ing wave is different. There are so many bumps and steps and crazy slabbing sections, there are waves you see out there that you definitely don’t want any part of.” — Andy Irons “I remember one I got, one of my last waves, I let go of the rope and went down over a big step and got put up high in the pocket of it and it spat really hard. I came out and was like, ‘I should have been deeper.’ And all the boys were like, ‘Fuck, that thing was huge!’ And I was thinking, ‘It wasn’t that big.’ And then when I seen it back on video I was like, ‘Ahhh!’ I didn’t realize what a monster the thing turned into. When I let go of the rope it wasn’t that big, but then once I went over the step and to the bottom it just got so big and evil-looking behind me, and there I was just kind of bottom-turning and cruising up into the pocket. I didn’t really get deep in the barrel, and kept thinking, ‘I should’ve been deeper.’ But the boys kept going, ‘Fuck mate, that thing was huge!’ I’m just glad I didn’t know what was behind me!” — Joel Parkinson “There were definitely some serious beatings out there. If you got into the south peak early and in the right spot there was kind of a ramp you could drop down that didn’t have a lot of stair-steps. It’s once the wave hits the second part of the reef that shit can get out of control.” —Laurie Towner “Laurie got a few other 12-footers—on one he tried to bottom-turn but his board went straight. He ate shit. He ended up bodysurfing and getting smashed. I was like, ‘Whoa, that was pretty heavy.’ The kid’s f---ing psycho, he’s like the modern Shawn Briley.” — Andy Irons “I probably got the award for worst wipeout. Where I wiped out looked really bad, but I think if I’d kept going, like made the section where I went down, it turned into a wave that wasn’t ridable, so I’m glad I kind of wiped out where I did, even though it looked really heavy and worked the shit out of me. It was definitely a good thrill. I came up laughing and didn’t have any injuries. Margo and the boys were a bit freaked out when they saw it. Dylan was freaking, he thought I was dead.” — Joel Parkinson “Everybody was charging. There were a couple local guys taking some big ones, this bodyboarder from Western Oz was going for it too. Mark Matthews, that guy’s nuts. He had like no fear out there. Mark got some crazy ones.” —Laurie Towner “And Dylan’s a maniac, an absolute maniac. He only wiped out on one or two waves—he’s got it pretty wired out there.” — Joel Parkinson “It was such a good day, everybody got really good waves. I’m still pretty hyped. I’ve been thinking about it heaps. I’ve never ever towed before as well, so that was the first time for that, and I got a couple good ones, so that was a good experience.” —Laurie Towner “It was pretty radical. It was a long, long day; by the end I was pretty sick. Just pounded. I was throwing up. I was toast. Crispy. I’d just had too much. You know what, you have so much adrenaline pumping through your body, and then at the end of the day I felt really flat. You only get so much adrenaline.” — Joel Parkinson “I don’t even know what to think, that was definitely a session I won’t forget. I’d never been there before, so I was pretty amped to give it a try, and now I can’t believe it. That wave is such a mutant, an absolute freak. Everybody charged so hard, and at the end of the day nobody got hurt or killed, so I guess you’d have to say the mission was a success.” — Andy Irons “That day’s changed my surfing...for a while anyways. I haven’t surfed for like four days. I tried to surf shitty D-bah when I came home, I don’t know, I just couldn’t get into it. When I first came back I wanted to surf, but then every time I got in the water I’d be wanting to see a 12-foot frickin’ slab and all there was were one-foot little crumblers. But it’s getting out of my head now.” — Joel Parkinson |
