The Eddie doesn’t run all that often. It’s incredibly frustrating, but it’s also what makes it so great. Every year, the waiting period begins, and most years, it runs its course without a proper sized swell. For the last six years, in fact, the fabled wave at Waimea has stayed under the necessary 40-foot mark/20-foot Hawaiian.
The Eddie is about a lot more than just riding big waves. It honors one of the truest legends of the sport and the place he loved so much. It’s more about what and who it represents than the act of surfing–and because of that, a win there is different than anywhere else. It doesn’t represent winning as the act of beating someone else, it represents honoring something that is a cornerstone of surfing.
With this year’s El Nino forecasted to be incredibly powerful, all fingers are crossed that a swell big enough graces the Bay with a swell that Eddie would approve of. The three month waiting period begins on December 1st and runs though February 29th.
