I got to see a handful of freesurf sessions at Supertubos a couple of years ago ahead of the Championship Tour’s visit to Portugal. It was the last week of February 2022 and the event was set to take place the following week, so most of the CT field was in a routine of daily visits to get their bearings on the place. All of Europe was getting pummeled with surf at the time. It was a frenzy, as pre-event freesurfs tend to be when the Championship Tour and swell hit town at the same time.
Now, for anybody who’s never seen Supertubos with their own eyes, the constant comparisons to Pipe only tell part of the story. Both have elevator drops and that distinct almond-shaped barrel when looking down from the shoulder. Both have an intense energy when you’re standing on the beach watching 10-foot bombs detonate close to shore. But Supertubos is its own kind of heavy in that double overhead range. It’s not heavier than Pipe. It’s just….different.
“The temperature, the time change, the culture, everything,” John John Florence told media this week when describing the wild shift from two events in Hawaii and then on to Peniche to kick off the year. “The environment’s a lot harsher this time of year. A lot more raw. The ocean is cold and everything seems to hurt a little more.”
Portugal’s Frederico Morais admitted most people either love the wave or they hate it.
“When it’s good it’s amazing, when it’s hard, it’s one of your biggest nightmares,” he said, paraphrasing another description Florence had given of Supertubos earlier in the day.
Even Kanoa Igarashi, who lives in Portugal for part of every year, doesn’t have the place completely dialed competitively. He’s made it past the quarterfinal in Portugal just twice in his career.
“It’s a wave that you can’t plan anything,” he says, calling Supertubos one of the best waves on the planet and one of the toughest to surf at the same time. “You have to go in the water and you have to trust your instincts. You can never predict the winds and all of the tide movements here in Peniche and the swell directions. You have to adapt a lot.”
