“You’re scared of dying on days at Pipeline, that’s just how it is. And you see the consequences that can happen pretty regularly.”
Molly Picklum doesn’t muck about. Neither does Pipeline. More than ever this Hawaiian winter.
The months leading up to this week’s Pipe Pro, the first stop on surfing’s 2024 world tour, have been nothing short of brutal.
Event forecasts from no lesser authority than Kelly Slater of “double to triple overhead” – or two to three metres – promise more of the same.
Consistently heaving swells right around the northern hemisphere – from Portugal’s big wave haunt Nazare to the floods and natural disasters up and down the Californian coast – have hit home on Oahu’s North Shore and taken no prisoners in the process.
World No. 4 Joao Chianca was dragged unconscious from the water in December after coming unstuck at Backdoor, the right-hand break running off Pipeline’s famed take-off point.
Brazilian Joao Chianca takes a spill at Backdoor Pipeline that eventually knocks him unconscious.
Local pros Koa Rothman and Kai Lenny have both come unstuck. Rothman was left bloody and bruised, while Lenny was saved by the first surf helmet he had ever worn in his own backyard, coming away with a heavy concussion, bleeding from his ear and little memory of the incident.
Tahitian-born pro Eimeo Czermak was pitched head first into the Hawaiian reef during December’s Pipe Masters, wearing an eye-watering $US55,000 ($AUD83,000) hospital bill for treatment of a head injury and spinal cord damage that left him unable to feel his legs for a week.
Peruvian Joaquin del Castillo also turned to crowdfunding for help with a potential six-figure invoice for a pelvis broken into 10 pieces.
Thankfully, all are on the mend and Czermak’s GoFundMe page covered his medical costs.
“But man, Pipeline’s no joke, it doesn’t mind giving out a reminder of what it can do,” Australian star and world No.5 Jack Robinson says, before launching into his own Banzai flashbacks.
As the reigning Pipeline Pro champion, Robinson is more qualified than most to hold court.
Raised on Western Australia’s own savage slabs from the age of eight, Robinson has been visiting Hawaii annually since before he was a teenager.
“I’ve calmed down a bit now, when I was a kid I’d go wild out there, chase any wave and I was knocked out when I was 18,” Robinson tells this masthead, having donned a surf helmet for the first time at Pipeline this year as well.
“I took off on a rising swell and when the waves are getting bigger there it pushes in [on the reef] harder and harder and it gets really dangerous. No one really surfs when the swell is on the way up. The reef gets really shallow and the water’s just sucking up with that building swell.
“I caught a wave, I went down the face and I don’t think it was even the reef that knocked me out. I was sucked back over the lip and I slammed inside the barrel and hitting the water that hard knocked me out.
“I had cuts up my shoulder, I didn’t know where I was and I paddled back out thinking I could go the next wave. Guys in the line-up were asking me if I was OK and I realised I probably should go in.
“I only remembered what happened afterwards. But I remember the water was so clear, just this perfect, sparkling Hawaiian water, but it was just me seeing stars and coming back to it.”
Jack Robinson in the eye of a Banzai monster at last year’s Billabong Pro Pipeline.Credit: Getty
Picklum, meanwhile, is fast making Pipeline her favourite hunting ground.
The 21-year-old – who will lead the Australian charge alongside world No.3 Tyler Wright, mens’s No.2 Ethan Ewing and Robinson – finished second in December’s Pipe Masters.
Last year she won it and was ranked as the best female surfer in the world six weeks later.
“But when you’re in Hawaii, your cup’s got to be empty,” Picklum says.
Molly Picklum in the eye of a Pipeline storm.Credit: Tony Heff
“You’ve got to be ready to fill it with trauma and all the mental stuff that goes with surfing in Hawaii. Genuinely, it’s really testing of there, you find out what you’re made of in Hawaii.
“And that’s mentally draining too because you’re pushing yourself and you’re being tested every single surf.”
Picklum told this masthead last year that she discovered one of the breaks underwater caves during one hold-down during a practice session.
Both she and Robinson believe the heavy crowds that can pitch more than 150 people onto the break play a significant part in the carnage Pipeline can unleash. So too the competitiveness that in previous years has bordered on dangerous.
But as for whether there’s any added, secret ingredient in the Hawaiian break’s secret sauce, beyond consistently bulging swells this season?
“It’s just Pipe I think,” Picklum says. “You honestly can’t pick when you’re going to come away safe or potentially badly injured.
“She talks to you out there. I know that sounds crazy but you can feel the energy of a building swell – it’s doubling up and it’s got backwash. You’re probably not going to take as many waves because it just feels more dangerous.
“You’re relying on your instincts and I think that’s how the good surfers do well out there.”
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