“Novelty wave” is a term all-star vlogger Ben Gravy has made pretty popular lately. We wouldn’t say he created the genre, but he certainly helped us all articulate a very specific aspect of surfing everybody knows and loves: using waves you otherwise wouldn’t so much as blink at to have the most fun sessions possible. It could be a wedging, refracting wall of water off a jetty, an acid drop off a pier in Lake Tahoe (yeah, he did that once), or just about anything else you can think of.
You know who else has this novelty wave thing hammered down as well as anybody on the planet? The king of non-traditional shredding, Jamie O’Brien. So here he is, during a time of year when the North Shore of Oahu starts to get a little sleepy in the wave department, cooking with a few perfect ingredients for the most novelty of novelty sessions. A winch for towing. Minuscule Pipeline shorebreak. And a handful of soft-tops.
This may be the first time anybody’s used a winch to tow into Pipeline for the sole purpose of hucking airs. Enjoy.
