Gabe Davies : photo mickeysmith.co.uk

Gabe Davies : photo mickeysmith.co.uk

Big Wave - Tow-In, Ireland

Freesurf Tow-In session
Mullaghnmore Head, Ireland
1 December 2007

THE PERFECT STORM, SATURDAY 1 DECEMBER 2007, MULLAGHMORE HEAD   |  Additional report & photos

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 3 December, 2007 : - - Before darkness lifted from the west coast of Ireland early on Saturday morning, four surfers left Mullaghmore harbour in County Sligo on jet-skis bound for the audible monstrous waves shaking the nearby reef.  The scene was one of angry waters stretching to a black horizon that blurred into a fierce sky but the atmosphere among the surfers was one of calm anticipation as they left the safety of the harbour to attempt a death-defying challenge.  To surf the biggest waves ever caught in British or Irish waters. 

The previous evening, radio and television news broadcasts had featured warnings about the severe weather and immense waves predicted by the Met Office.  Low pressure systems spiralling in the Atlantic had been monitored by experts who anticipated waves in the region of forty feet, likened by one broadcast to three double-decker buses balanced on top of each other.  Reports urged boat owners to be vigilant and directly appealed to surfers to stay away from the water, resisting the temptation to test their capabilities. 

However, English professional surfer Gabriel Davies and his Irish tow-surfing partner from Bundoran, County Donegal, Richard Fitzgerald had also been tracking the storm sequence and knew this was one swell they would not be watching from dry land.  Davies and Fitzgerald knew they were capable and they relished the chance to prove it.  

Duncan Scott : photo mickeysmith.co.uk (click image to enlarge)

Click images to enlarge

Drop : photo mickeysmith.co.uk (click image to enlarge)

There has in recent years been a wave of artistic interest in British and Irish surfing.  This year alone, five independent films have been in production focusing on the pursuits of British and Irish surfers in Irish waters.  The largest of these productions, working title Waveriders, is shot entirely on film to beautifully portray the spectacular scenery on and off land and features Gabriel Davies and Richard Fitzgerald.  Locations include an immense wave tucked at the base of the seven-hundred foot Cliffs of Moher in County Clare.  The film directed by Dubliner Joel Conroy of Inis Films and co-produced by Besom Productions of Derry follows Davies and Fitzgerald as they track the history of Irish surfing from the Irish-Hawaiian George Freeth who rekindled the Hawaiian’s love of surfing in the nineteenth century to the present day pioneers of surfing; the big wave surfers. 

Davies and Fitzgerald, who pioneered tow-in surfing in Ireland, were on location at Mullaghmore to shoot the climactic final scene of an already dramatic film.  They had scarcely bargained for the big swell that had been written into the script being, in reality, the biggest swell ever surfed in the area.  As a matter of safety, the pair were joined on Saturday by a second team, Alistair Mennie from Northern Ireland and South African, Duncan Scott.  The surfers also had a third ski in place and a safety boat in the relatively calm channel beside the reef to be used in case of emergency.  Action photographer, Mickey Smith, swam through the swell surging over the reef to take up position in the channel for the action shots.

Big : photo mickeysmith.co.uk (click image to enlarge)

Click images to enlarge

Perfect : photo mickeysmith.co.uk (click image to enlarge)

At first light the waves wrapping around the headland at Mullaghmore were easily three to four times overhead on the surfers but the swell was still building.  By nine o’clock, the waves had doubled in size, thundering towards the cliff that housed the film crew and the crowd that had gathered in the storm to watch the spectacle.  Gabriel Davies was the first to catch one of the monsters, the thick foam charging along behind him like a freight train.  Fitzgerald caught a wave that warped on the reef, sending the lip crashing down on top of him.  ‘Imagine a bucket of icy water being poured on your head,’ he later described, ‘then imagine three buckets of icy water the size of swimming pools and that’s what it felt like.’  Having survived the impact, Fitzgerald then caught the biggest wave of his life.

At times during the session, the sky turned black and a squall hit the surfers but they braved the gale-force winds for over three hours.  In the final minutes of filming, Duncan Scott caught a wave that was estimated to tower eight times over his head.  The crowd erupted and then fell silent as Gabriel Davies towed into the very next wave.  The wall reached ten times his height before curving into a hollow barrel that enveloped the surfer before blasting him out of the biggest tube ever seen in these waters.  The cheer from the top of the cliffs overpowered even the sound of the tonnes of water crashing at their base.  ‘I have to admit I was terrified at the thought of heading into a fourteen-metre swell,’ said Davies.  ‘I have surfed huge waves but these were the next level.  The mountains I thought I had been riding before were molehills in comparison.’ 

Victorious and exhausted, the surfers returned to the harbour where they resisted the urge to kiss dry land.  The film was in the can and the biggest waves ever ridden in Ireland had been tamed.  Until the next perfect storm.

Waveriders is due to air in the spring of 2008.  It is backed by the Irish Film Board/Bord Scannán na hÉireann, the Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission, ICBAN/Interreg III, the BBC and the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland.

Duncan Scott, Mullaghmore Head, Ireland : photo Kelly Allen (enlarge) 

Click images to enlarge

Jetski Chase, Mullaghmore Head, Ireland : photo Kelly Allen (enlarge)

www.mickeysmith.co.uk 

Related Aarticles:

Carve Mag audio interview with Gabe Davies, Richie Fitzgerald & Mickey Smith

Britain battered by 70mph winds from the Atlantic, surfers benefit

Swells that were estimated to be as big as 55ft (16.7m) allowed Hawaiian-style tow-surfing, where the rider is pulled into the back of a giant wave by a jetski. Duncan Scott, Chairman of the British Tow-Surfing Association, and one of a pioneering crew who brought the sport from the sunny reefs of Hawaii to the ice-cold Celtic waters, was one of a group of four surfers who took jetskis out to Mullagmore Head in Donegal Bay.

Scott, 29, travelled over from Newquay on Thursday night when he saw the swell forecast. "It's been brewing for four or five days out in the Atlantic, and it was the biggest forecast I had ever seen – you never normally see that much red on the swell chart. The wave face was over 60ft, and the biggest that any of us had ever seen. I was part of the group in 2005 that previously rode the biggest waves, but this dwarfed them."

Mullagmore Head is uniquely placed for big wave surfing, because open-ocean swells jackknife up over a shallow reef ledge, which magnifies the swells vertically and, this weekend, translated into wave faces of over 60ft being ridden. "If you say you're not scared when you see waves the size of giant houses trundling towards you, you'd have to be a liar", said Scott. "It's that line between awesome and overpowering that's the attraction of big wave surfing."

Previously the biggest waves recorded by the Marine Institute's data buoys were to the west of Galway Bay back in January 2005, when swells of 44ft (13.4m) were recorded.

Read the full article at The Independant


More Related Aarticles:

Record sized waves forecast for West Ireland this w/end
Two tow-teams ride biggest swell to ever hit British Isles

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Lauren Davies  

Big Wave Tow-in - Surfersvillage