SUP surfers and longboarders are in the water at Pipeline as the Da Hui Backdoor Shootout in Memory of Duke Kahanamoku got started today on the North Shore. It’s one of the best contests on the island each year, and one locals certainly love. I was at the opening ceremonies to take in the tradition on the first Saturday of 2026.
Grey skies and steady rain doused Oahu’s North Shore. Hundreds of people gathered at Pipeline just before 10:00 a.m. for the ceremony just as the rain stopped and the sky cleared.
The revered annual surfing invitational at Ehukai Beach Park will see two days of competition (which you can watch here) before the window closes on January 16. “It’s probably the best way to start the year,” said Pipeline Master Jamie O’Brien, who joins Kelly Slater, Moana Jones-Wong, Koa Smith, and Shayden Pacarro (plus alternate Luke Tema) on the formidable Team Project New Earth. (The competition is uniquely formatted into teams.)
“It’s a group of friends — a group of family, from the North Shore and all around the world — coming together, and hopefully we get to score some epic waves together.”
Competitors including Conner Coffin, Koa Rothman, and Billy Kemper checked in, and the assembled crowd of athletes, spectators, and members of the Hui O He’e Nalu community group took their seats. The protocol began with five conch shells being blown in each of the four directions, the final of which faced Pipeline. One of the conch blowers participating throughout the protocol was Joseph Mamoa, father of Chief of War actor Jason Mamoa.
Competitors at the opening ceremony. Photo: Amelia Gray
The leaders of the Hui O He’e Nalu (Club of Wave Riders), founder Eddie Rothman and second-generation founder David Kawika Stant, were brought to the center of the event space to receive blessings, guidance, and lei from one of the present members of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I, a Native Hawaiian fraternity whose members attend ceremonial events to provide a civic presence of the kingdom’s sovereignty. Members of Da Hui then lined up to give the two men honi, more lei, and warm embraces before the leaders spoke.
Stant, who also competes in the event, told the crowd that the start of the Backdoor Shootout in 1996 filled a hole left by the conclusion of the Duke Kahanamoku Invitational event in 1984, making the Backdoor Shootout and the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational in Waimea Bay the “two great contests here.”
“I feel blessed, I feel fortunate to surf in this contest, and you guys just do your guys’ best,” Stant told the athletes. “Thank you guys for performing and for making our contest one of the best in the world.”
After the athletes and everyone in attendance were blessed with cleansed water and ti leaves, the crowd then proceeded down to the shoreline to bless the rolling waves, which were showered with lei thrown into the froth. In the takeoff zone just offshore, freesurfers were paddling into Pipeline and Backdoor like clockwork.
The event’s format will see eight teams of five surfers each competing in four non-elimination rounds, conditions permitting. The best individual athlete is determined by their top three wave scores, and is crowned alongside the best-performing team at the end of the event. The 2025 Da Hui Backdoor Shootout winners were Team Japan and Koa Rothman.
Photo: Amelia Gray
Australia’s Barton Lynch has served as one of the four judges of the event previously, and was at Saturday’s opening ceremony to celebrate his return again this year. He acknowledged that “this is one of the harder jobs that I do, because it’s lots of responsibility” when judging an event steeped in such significance for both Hawaiian and surf culture.
“The hardest part about the job is that the first wave of day one has to make sense with the last wave on the last day,” Lynch said, explaining that the judges fervently jot down details of every wave of consequence as they happen, to then be able to refer to later as the scale develops.
Lynch said the Shootout being separate from traditional contest agencies like the Hawaii Surfing Association, the International Olympic Committee, and the World Surf League gives the event “its own autonomy” for adaptations like its unique 12-point scoring system instead of the usual 10-point cap.
Former event champion Mason Ho called the Backdoor Shootout “one of my favorite events during the North Shore season.”
“It’s a special event with a lot of cool history, and the opening ceremony and protocol are very special, as well,” he said. “It showcases a lot of the roots and the culture that the event represents, so to be here and soak it in is a blessing.”
The event started today with SUP and longboard surfing. The team competition is next. Check the Da Hui Instagram page for updates on the day’s call.
