Tim Bonythons short Right of Way has no shortage of incredible rides at Australias famed slab. Photo: Tim Bonython // YouTube
Right of Way, the latest short from surf videographer Tim Bonython, starts with tense anticipation as a megaswell approaches The Right, Australia’s famed slab wave. As Tim interviews forecasters, water safety crew and surfers on the lead-up to the swell’s arrival, even they can’t help but betray their excitement through the practiced nonchalance of big wave chargers.
However, Bonython himself doesn’t mince words when it comes to describing what’s about to go down. “It’s very, very powerful. It’s coming from a massive storm in the Indian Ocean,” he explains to camera. Bonython’s ride to the jet ski launch, slab aficionado Kipp Caddy, backed him up, adding that the 19-second swell period was “getting close to as big as you get, really.” With that, it was time to see what this monster was actually going to look like when it arrived.
Of course, any viewer who has seen Bonython’s previous efforts knows it was going to be a day of days. The rest of the video, filmed with dizzying clarity in lush slow motion, details Kipp, Mitch Capelli, Zac Haynes, Josh Garner and more tempt fate on what Caddy calls “the Mount Everest of slab surfing.”
