When the Right turns on, things can go very wrong. Photo: Chris Ross//Courtesy of Tim Bonython
The Right is one of the scariest waves in the world. The Western Australian slab doesn’t kick off the sheets often, but when its slumber comes to an end, things get hairy. Like, really hairy. And when a big slab gets hairy, you can count on Tim Bonython to be there.
“When The Right wakes up, it’s pure chaos,” Bonython wrote. “This slab in Western Australia only breaks a handful of times each year, but when the conditions line up, it produces some of the biggest, thickest barrels on the planet.”
On the day featured in the video you see here, a storm sat close off the coast of WA. It whipped up a swell with 25-footers onto a hunk of reef that sits far out to sea. It’s a wild place, suitable only for those with a few screws loose.
“When that much ocean hits The Right, the wave turns dark, raw… almost evil,” Bonython continued. “So why would anyone want to ride it? Because some surfers live for the challenge of taming the beast. On this day, a few did but sometimes paid the price. At The Right, every wave is a test. Sometimes the surfers win. Sometimes the ocean does.”
