Thomas Traversa was on a mission last autumn to chase significant low-pressure systems when and wherever they appeared. From Iceland to Ireland to Nazaré, Thomas and friends tell the tale of the hunt…
Words Thomas Traversa, Sylvain Bourlard & Jules Denel. //
Photos
Iceland – Thomas Traversa, Sylvain Bourlard & Jules Denel; Ireland – Bsp Media & Patrick Murtagh; Nazaré – Vitor Estrelinha / Praia do Norte & Jamie Hancock / Panasonic.
Originally published within the January February ’18 edition.
ICELAND CALLING
THOMAS TRAVERSA – “This whole crazy mission started with a trip to Iceland in late September, less than a week before Sylt’s PWA final. I first travelled to this exceptional country in 2012 with my wife Sophia and Jules Denel. We had great weather and amazing conditions that allowed us to camp and sail 4 or 5 times at different spots in the south of the island. We had also explored on the coast and inland, to see what this country had to offer to us ‘curious’ travellers. Iceland is incredible with waterfalls, lots of potential windsurf spots, glaciers, geysers, hot springs and the beautiful city of Reykjavik. It was a great trip that ended with the discovery of a surf spot that seemed to have a lot of potential for windsurfing, given a decent swell and the right direction of wind. Jules and I decided that we should return to Iceland to ride this wave, and for 5 years we have been on stand-by every summer, ready to try our luck when the opportunity would arise. Located in the north of the Atlantic Ocean, this huge island, a little round and very volcanic, is regularly swept by strong and changing winds, and almost all Atlantic swells end up hitting its shores. The problem is knowing when and where to go! I have never seen a place where the weather changes so regularly, and with the coastal effects created by the mountainous terrain it becomes a real headache to plan a trip more than 3 or 4 days in advance.
When we saw how the forecast for the third week of September was shaping up, Jules and I began to look at the possibilities of a flight, unsuccessfully sought a photographer to accompany us, and continuously studied the local weather maps because we were worried about the rain. On Friday we booked our tickets and on Sunday evening I met Jules in the arrival hall of Keflavik airport, as well as Sylvain Bourlard, a windsurfing friend from the north of France to whom I’ll hand over the rest of the story from our Icelandic adventure.”
SYLVAIN BOURLARD
“I was going to be 38 in Iceland. It’s been 20 years since I started windsurfing in waves and spent about as much time living as a married man? Which is the most complicated? I began to wonder.
DAY ONE
I am accustomed to port tack conditions, but we start our journey with mild winds from the right, over mast high waves and surrounded by rocks of 1.5m! It feels a bit like being single after spending 18 years with my girlfriend. It does not feel comfortable. It makes me think, doubt my ability, but I need to keep moving forward. Thomas makes the conditions look easy, there’s a reason he was world champion! While Jules lays down some deep bottom turns, Thomas makes the spot his own, throwing airs of another dimension. Sailing back to the peak is a treat. We take our time to enjoy the view and watch each other riding. For my part, I try to place myself in the right spot. I am going deeper and deeper, I hold my breath, the adrenaline rises and once I drop in, it’s pure pleasure. My age does not reduce the fun, it’s the opposite! We ride wave after wave all afternoon and the day ends with a good beer in a Jacuzzi under the stars. Massive thanks to the local windsurfers for their hospitality!
DAY TWO
The next day, the wind has turned. We are looking for a ‘magic’ spot. We study the maps, drive, take small paths and get stuck in the sand until we have to unload the gear and push the car. Finally all of our efforts pay off. We end up on a deserted beach with glassy waves swept by 30 knots cross-off. It’s going off! We have perfect waves just for us. We spend the day there, doing two sessions of two and a half hours. At the end of the day we are exhausted but the smiles on our faces says a lot about the day we just had.
DAY THREE
For the last day, the weather window is narrow but we had spotted a break with big potential. We woke-up at 6 a.m. and arrived at the spot for sunrise. It was a bit of an expedition to get to the water, but we ended up riding fun and glassy waves for 2 hours, until the wind finally died and it was time to drive to the airport. These three days were so intense that it felt like we had been here for 1 week! The plane was a good place to relax, let everything sink in and reflect on some amazing sessions. At 38, I continue to get psyched with each windsurf trip and am still improving my sailing. This year I discovered incredible waves in Tahiti at Teahupoo and Haapiti and incredible conditions in Iceland. It’s never too late to discover new horizons or start your next adventure. You just have to give yourself the means to be in the right place, at the right time and with the right people!”
REFLECTIONS
Jules Denel – “What is a ‘pro windsurfer’? I started from the premise that to be pro is to know how to tear it up in a free sailing session, to be solid in competition and be able to create opportunities to travel to anywhere in the world that has good conditions. A pro should be able to ride to the best of his ability unique waves, as a painter would take his palette and his brush to paint the emotions expressed to him by the place where he is! During the first few weeks of September, we lived the two extremes of the professional pro windsurf life. For many years I have been used to last minute trips with Thomas. This time we decided to go explore Iceland for the second time, but to bring Sylvain, an amateur windsurfer, for whom Iceland was still a new place to explore. We decided to travel from Sunday to Wednesday with the final PWA Wave event in Sylt starting a mere two days later! We would sleep in a tent, sail all day in the cross off conditions without spectators or the pressure of heats and knew when we arrived in Sylt, we would go from one extreme to the other!
Often confronted with these two extremes, I always ask myself this question, what is better for you, for your sponsors and for the people who follow you? The competition side and results is surely by far the most representative. But what is the best in the world on a tour like this year? Three stops in conditions where no one would normally go in the water for free sailing, except maybe in Tenerife at the right time of the tide! So basically to be the best possible on the PWA, you have to become the machine in 360’s, takas and shakas in cross-on conditions? Is that the sort of windsurfing that makes us dream? Not me! For me trips are as important as competitions because it helps to remove all the frustrations of competing. Together with friends, we had a real adventure in Iceland. There were still so many ‘World Class’ spots to discover as we searched on Google maps for the best possible points for swell and wind and if it was possible to access them. We had to find places to sleep at the last minute and in the evenings we enjoyed a beer to discuss the best moves of the session, and ponder on which spots we will discover the next day. It was a unique experience that makes me just as excited to become the best I can in competition!
That’s why I try to keep the balance with what I love; between my sessions with friends at home in Wissant, to go to the competitions to try to climb as high as possible in the PWA ranking and still enjoy the pure emotions that make you feel alive when you go on a trip. We all still have so much to learn and discover through windsurfing!”
IRELAND
Thomas Traversa picks up the story as his personal storm chase continued to the Emerald Isle.
THOMAS TRAVERSA – “The PWA season was over, I was really disappointed to drop from 4th to 6th overall. And then this hurricane appeared on the maps, they called it Ophelia, it was something special. A good friend of mine, Philippe Mesmeur, was in Ireland with his van, he picked me up at Dublin’s airport and we drove to Clonakilty, south west of Cork. This was the place where the storm was going to hit the coast with a lot of power, and someone on Facebook told me to go there. Timo Mullen knew the guy and told me it could be good, but he wasn’t sure of anything.
The wind came first, in the morning. Then the rain. Then the waves, and by this time half of the roads were blocked by fallen trees it was total chaos. At the end of the day the sky cleared, and we managed to reach a beach called Inchydoney, where I went in the water for the last hour before sunset. I sailed in the inside as the waves were breaking 1 km outside and the wind was still very strong and gusty. I couldn’t do anything but I was just happy to be out there feeling the power of the storm. A few days earlier Leon Jamaer said to me “If you don’t score good conditions at least you will have a story to tell your kids!”
The next morning we could hear the birds and the skies were blue, the storm was gone; almost like a different season at a different place. Philippe said we should go fishing, and after failing to catch any fish at the first place we tried, we looked at google maps and drove to a small bay. Once on the cliff we looked down and saw this wave breaking in the middle of the bay. It was not big but very hollow, almost too hollow. We got very excited once we looked again at google maps and arrived to the conclusion that this wave would work perfectly for windsurfing on a north west wind and a high tide because at low tide the rocks are dry.
Windguru was forecasting a 7 metre swell and a strong north west wind a few days later, we couldn’t believe it! This storm was called Brian and we had to meet Brian very early because the high tide was at 7am and we knew we could only ride that wave on a high tide. It was dark, very windy and the waves were big and scary, but it was our only chance so we went out. I rode about 10 waves, 2 of them were huge and choppy. I felt so much pressure in my whole body going down the face and knowing what was breaking behind me; I knew I had to not crash, it was just Philippe and I out there and the situation could get bad. We were still dizzy when we got to the beach! Happy that we went out there and even happier to be back!
At the end of the day the tide filled in again and we went for a second session. The waves were smaller but still big, the wind had swung more offshore, it looked much more fun! We sailed two hours, until it got dark, the waves were extremely hollow and fast, scary but very clean at the same time. After riding such powerful waves in the morning this second session felt like a dream: this was the moment we imagined when we first saw the wave a few days earlier!”
Not content with breaking the Internet with his exploits in Ireland, Thomas headed to the famed big waves of Nazaré in Portugal. It was a performance that showed again why Thomas is the Red Bull Storm Chase champion and continues to amaze the public, press and his peers. Finn Mullen spoke to Thomas to find out more about the session.
NAZARÉ
FM – Have you always wanted to sail Nazaré or was it a spur of the moment thing when you saw the good forecast?
TT – Sailing Nazaré was never a goal for me but I thought I should have a look at the waves on a good forecast, maybe sail, maybe not. I wasn’t sure what it was really like for windsurfing, I would only go out if I felt like I could have fun and do something on the wave. Going out just to say I sailed there was never an option.
FM – What did you think about Nazaré before and after the session?
TT – Before sailing there I had the impression that the waves were really good for windsurfing, because they are very peaky and really powerful, so you can focus on the one big drop in / top turn combination and really commit to it. As good as each individual wave looked, my biggest concern was that there are 2 different peaks breaking with about 30 degrees of difference in their angle to the beach, and these 2 peaks tend to connect into terrifying “compactor” waves. Then there is this big cliff where you can get smashed really bad if you get caught or crash on the outside left peak. And if the wave closes out and you can’t kick out in time you have no other choice than ending up in the inside, where the wind is light and gusty, and the shore break is very heavy. That also means your session is probably over as it is virtually impossible to sail out of that corner or to get out using a ski, because huge waves are breaking everywhere. For all these reasons I decided not to go out on the really big day, I thought it would not be possible to properly ride a wave and get out again. On the next day the swell was much smaller and only the bigger ones were breaking outside, of course it was still the same 2 peaks situation but it wasn’t life-threatening. I knew I had to choose the good waves and be in the right place, and then I could get some great rides.
FM – What is it like to sail Nazaré, is it like anywhere else you have sailed?
TT – I cannot really tell how it is to sail there when it’s gigantic. But even on a smaller day it is quite intimidating, you are outside and see these lines coming at high speed from different directions, and growing in size as they approach the impact zone. I felt very small and vulnerable! There is no channel, no lagoon, once you decide to go on a wave there is no way back, you must put yourself deep in the wave because there is not so much shoulder. It is all about being in the pit; but you must clear the section and kick out in time to be able to get back to the outside without getting smashed. The adrenaline never stops flowing, there is no downtime! Once you get into this rhythm the wave makes you want to play because it is one big clean peak, kind of like Jaws but even shorter, you know it is all about placing yourself in the best place for the one crazy section.
FM – Did you plan to do an aerial?
TT – I did not plan to do an aerial but I was hoping to do one! Airs on big waves are like barrels in big wave surfing – way better than anything else. It takes a lot of commitment to hit a big lip so I wanted to catch some good waves before trying something crazy, but it was always in the back of my mind. I went for the first air after more than one hour of sailing. The bowl was clean, I went around it and came from underneath to fly off the edge of the breaking lip, into the shoulder of the wave. It was not a huge wave but it always feels amazing, going up the face takes so long, you really have time to look at the section standing up and almost breaking on top of you. After that I was almost happy with myself and caught some more waves, but inside my head I wanted to hit one close out to fly really high. The tide was coming up and the waves became harder to read because of the backwash, until I caught a medium one on the north peak that looked clean. I did a nice carve on the face and saw the south bowl waiting for me under the cliff, I felt it was the moment and went full power into that big section as late as I could to make sure I was going to fly into the flats. Everything went as planned and once in the air I had a lot of time to enjoy the moment and the session in general. I was not going to make anything better that day. I focussed on the landing and rode a few extra metres until I lost all my speed and let the whitewater take me. I was happy.
FM – Did you have any scary moments?
TT- I didn’t have one scary moment in particular, I was really focussed all the time and knew something was going to happen at one point. On my 5th attempt I dropped into a wave that was a close out and tried to kick out when I realised it was closing out mid-bottom turn, but it was almost too late and I just managed to eject over the face. The next wave was bigger and I had to look at the wall breaking some metres in front of me before I went under the water and waited for the whitewater to pass. More than scared, I was angry with myself for making the wrong decision. I thought the session was over as my sail was ripped off the mast. The jet ski picked me up and dropped me at the beach, where I decided to rig another sail and try to get out on the northern part of the beach. Somehow I made it, pumping like a maniac between the relatively small waves. I avoided any major set waves and got to the outside completely exhausted and running on a lot of adrenalin. After that I knew I had been through the hardest part of the day and I only had to go for it and enjoy.
FM – What kit and safety measures did you use?
TT- I used my medium board, 68 litres, it’s the same board I used in Tenerife for the PWA, and fins were the normal ones, 15 cm centre and 10 cm side fins from Tabou. I made a mistake to go on a 4.2 at the beginning, it was very light even though it looked windy, but after breaking that sail I used my 4.5 IQ and that was perfect. I was wearing an impact vest ( wakeboard) as I usually do if it’s very big and heavy, and the friend of a friend was there to help me with his jet ski – Pecas is a good surfer from Portugal and is just starting to go to Nazaré but he did a great job staying next to me in case something would happen, and picked me up pretty quickly after I took that wave on the head.
FM – Will you sail Nazaré again or is that box ticked?
TT – I don’t know but I think I will sail there again because it was fun! Probably I will go again on a medium size day, and I would like to sail on a bigger day, not when it’s huge and deadly but there are some bigger days where it could be fun, with the right combination of wind and waves and tide. I will see if
it happens.
FM – What drives you to sail these incredible waves? Has having a family changed your approach?
TT – I just get too excited when I see a forecast with big waves and good wind! I cannot miss it, that would be too hard, so I have to go and hope I will be able to sail and have fun. The feeling I get from riding big waves is just so strong and special. These big waves are only there for a few hours and to have the chance to be out there and ride them is amazing. It makes you feel so alive and you don’t have time to think, it is pure reaction to nature, almost survival mode, like if you were an animal. Having a family did not change my approach because I know my limits and what risks I am willing to take or not. Riding these waves is pure reaction to the moment but there are a lot of things happening before you actually get to ride them, so it always happens for a reason.
FM – After such an amazing few months of waves, what was the highlight for you?
TT – The highlight was maybe finding the slab in Southern Ireland! Or maybe to witness hurricane Ophelia. Or maybe to ride Nazaré. Everything was a highlight and I am still buzzing!
