was awesome getting out of bed on Saturday and watching that LIVE.

The guys the tow surf that stuff are completely insane. Sitting on one of those boats in the channel would've been an experience in itself

That wave is mind blowing. Would love to ride it on a 6ft day B)

 At first all looks well for the guys and then the wall just grows and grows and.. spits... LOL Those swells have so much grunt. I wounder how the guys survive after a wipeout. There are probably a few spectator boats that take a tumble as well. Not for me I am afraid LOL.

Like being pushed through a cheesegrater with a steamroller apparently. Thousands of tonnes of water bearing down on your, absolutely massive amounts of force. The barrels might be the size of houses, but they probably weigh more! Would probably be held under for minutes, and being thrown around with unbelievable force. I think i'll stick to the smaller one :p

Another video:

http://www.zapiks.com/billabong-pro-tahiti-2011-co.html

that half the time when they wiped out on Saturday they just popped up where they fell off, amazing really.

Other half they get ragdolled to the shithouse, couple of broken bones and dislocated shoulders where the injuries from memory.

and the heaviest part is u watch when the wave breaks its actually just like a big suge there are no backs to the waves! its just the water heaving over when it hits the shallow edge. death slabs!

hell men plain and simple

Apparently a wipe out at teahupo is known as a goon run ans you are pushed over the reef into the inside of the lagoon.

As tangles has said there is no back to the wave, it is just a complete ocean force unleashing on a ledge. Plenty of respect to the people surfing that place on whatever craft they ride.

The tow season was just epic. Bruce Irons is one made mo foe that for sure.

Watched most of the comp live. I agree about the channel. Sometimes those boats get very close to the shoulder.

Funny story when at Freo Yamaha we would provide the Jet Ski rescue with Aust Surf Life Saving. (long time ago when jet ski rescuewas just starting to get going) at Margarets. This one year i went down on the Friday night as our guys had used all the Resign, Fiberglass and even araldite they could get there hands on just trying to keep our skis afloat. The surf this year was epic and pushing well up to 20' plus face. Big heavy wave too.

Anyway after the last event on the Sunday i actually jumped on and went out on a ski to help pull in the buoys. I threw up with fear just sitting ten feet away from these monsters. I started to get very worried when out the back in the bay trying to get back to Prevelly and having to run the gauntlet through crashing surf with ski's that were breaking down badly. Needless to say luckily we never did it again after losing about $6500 in damages over the week. Thank god.

If anyone ever watched the events this was the year when Taj got caught on the inside with a school of sharks smashing up Salmon. One of my guys went in to help and got caught on the inside ( in the final ) ended up jumping ten foot in the air of a wave. Dropped the Aust surf life saving guy in the middle of the sharks. He was picked up by the second ski and the first ski ended up getting caught up in Occy's next wave. Drama.. But great to watch it all unfold and talked about for months after.

Great story Rod.

Was it live on Fox?

and streamed LIVE at billabong.com

Yeah live at Billabong.com

Spent too much time really but hey what ya gunna do..