Sessions
Doug Young, Dan Smith and Dave Lyons target an unruly wave on the edge of a reef during the last storm of the season. The ingredients were this: two 180-degree south swells, both 4m at 14 seconds, a west southwest wind that may drop to 20 knots, if we’re lucky,......
Most of the kaumatua of New Zealand surfing will tell you that they’ve forgotten more than we’ll ever know. Assembled around a campfire in the post-surf glow of twilight the stories tumble out like moths attracted to the flames. These are stories that should be treasured, told and re-told. Like......
He may prefer to hide away from the limelight, but Jamie Civil keeps drawing attention to himself in pumping hollow waves. Civil would have to be one of New Zealand’s best barrel riders and this edit by Tim Shaw and Oscar Johns attests to that. Filmed over a winter in......
In 2019 an east swell hit the Otago coastline in the middle of the winter. It was accompanied by a window of unseasonably settled weather, producing eight days of incredible surf conditions. Here’s what the tail end of that run of swell looked like. It doesn’t get much better than......
When a low-pressure system parks itself off the east coast it spins everyone into a frenzy. The recent July swell was no different and Piha photographer, CPL, fresh up for air after a deadline, wasted no time. He picks up the story … “Yes!” That was the emphatic reply I......
A group of Southern surfers chase a record-breaking swell as it lines up a remote reef break buried deep in the Catlins. What transpires has it all: blood, guts, an inhospitable peak and the rise of a new talent in big-wave surfing. New Zealand Surf Journal takes you inside one......
The February swell that swept into the East Coast and drifted south made a direct hit on Gisborne. The wonky, wobbly swell hit with such intensity that only few breaks could properly handle the volume of water moving around. The unusual easterly swell direction added to the confusion. But if......
A swarm of tropical cyclones swirled through the Pacific in the first half of February. As they dissipated they tracked south east and got trapped off the East Coast by a blocking high over New Zealand. That scenario created the perfect long range and sustained swell engine for the East......
I’d been tracking it from a week out and it played the notes of the forecast with precision. For big wave surfing this was a classic: its deep fetch straight off the western edge of Antarctica, landing an almost direct hit on the southeast corner of New Zealand. Then, sometime......
A late-season swell offers one last roll of the dice for New Zealand’s big-wave riders and the stakes are high. As the winds swing through the ideal bearing the focus falls on a reef on a remote corner of coastline. Four teams of surfers get the session of a lifetime.......