Car and Jump Surfing!

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Hout Bay isn't known for its extreme beach break surf. It's where Capetonians kick back, walk along the beach, visit the market and have some of the best fish and chips at the local fisheries. The beach break may in fact qualify as SA's most consistent 1ft closeout. It takes a huge swell on the Atlantic to break, usually the type of swell that makes Dungeons max out. Last Saturday, a 7.2m swell was forecast, so Jacob Mellish and I planned to meet up at "The Bay" and see what we could get in the way of shots. The waves were smaller than expected, in the 2ft range. I shot for about an hour until the wind swung a light onshore. © Thurtell We chilled in the parking lot for a while before deciding to hit up some lunch at the new indoor market down the road. We hassled around in the crowd, grabbed some baguettes and squeezed in to a crowded bench to eat. The waves had been small and we were discussing the "if only's" of the Hout Bay Harbour wall. Like "Ahh if only the harbour wall was angled a bit more to allow more swell in!" "If only we could tie a ski rope to a car and tow you into those waves..." There's a thought. Jacob was keen to give it a go, so we ran off to Spar and bought a skinny nylon ski rope. We popped over to Jacobs house and his mom's boyfriend, Dale, who was a wizz with carbon fibre and knew exactly how to splice a nylon rope, had a perfect tow handle ready for us in 10min. © Thurtell I was driving the car; Jacob was in position in the water, now all we needed was one of the inconsistent sets to arrive. We gave it a test on the flat water and everything looked good. By this stage curious onlookers started to crowd the pier, looking like the infamous Japanese tourists, cameras held glued to their eyes and ready to shoot anything that moved! Finally a set was in sight, only made visible by its height and wavelength as it ran along the pier. I slowly started to accelerate. Jacob was yelling "Faster, faster"! So just before I ran out of pier and smashed into the trigger happy onlookers, I gave him a final boost. I braked hard; craned my neck to my right and saw Jacob pump down the line and bash the little closeout. The crowd was going mental. Jacob was so amped on the plan working out he started trying out Acid Airs. The pier is about 2-3m above the wave crest so timing was everything. Jacob had to run alongside the incoming wave, matching its speed and then jump at the precise moment so that he landed the air and could continue riding the wave. He became so good at it by evening that he was thinking of mixing other moves into his airs. We'll see what next time produces.

Action Shot of how it all went down!

The result!