The Vans Pipe Masters will run before December 20. Photo: Vans.
Speculation around the running of the Vans Pipe Masters has been rampant here on the North Shore. We’re currently two days into the official event window (December 8-20), and so far, nary a swell has presented itself. December 6, “opening day” at Pipeline, saw awesome waves from dawn ’til dusk and there were plenty of leftovers to be had on the seventh, but since the event window opened on the eighth, windy conditions and small surf have prevailed.
That said, the swell should pick back up mid-week, and a big bump is forecasted for next weekend, with the wind as the wildcard. In other words, there’s a strong chance for epic conditions to line up, but it will take another couple of days to get the true picture.
Any sort of forecast for the Seven Mile Miracle tends to be unpredictable. Even day-of it’s hard to know whether or not swell and wind will align for those magical moments that will cement themselves in our memories. Being in the middle of the biggest body of ocean in the world means unpredictable winds at the best of times. And the North Shore’s unique position of staring directly into the middle of the North Pacific (where strong winter storms cook up the north swells we receive in Hawaii and on the West Coast) means direct and unfiltered access to waves. It often takes a bit longer for those swells to hit California, for example, giving more lead time for more accurate forecasts.
Word on the street is the event will take 3-4 days to run. With that in mind, we’ll probably see action kick off sometime towards the end of this next week, with the hopes of scoring the best window of that large weekend swell for finals day (around Dec. 17-18, or even the 19th and 20th). But that’s just what we think.
The down-low from Vans is that the event will be on call day-to-day starting Sunday December 11, with calls made each day starting at 7 a.m.. However I find it hard to believe it will run before Monday. In any case, stay posted here and via our Instagram for more as we keep our ears to the sand, and be sure to tune in to the action when it kicks off at Pipemasters.vans.com/ and on YouTube.
