DANGER ZONE: TENIA, NEW CALEDONIA

Antoine Albert tells the tale of an epic outer reef session in New Caledonia with only a few close friends for company.

Words: Antoine Albert

Photos: Gill Chabaud

THE FORECAST

The forecast was pretty epic. When a swell is inbound in the South Pacific, it is coming from a low pressure that is sitting near Tasmania. This pushes the southwesterly swell towards New Caledonia and then on to Fiji. Swell from the south / southwest is the best direction for us in New Caledonia. For this session we had a 3.5 metre swell at 16 seconds forecast from the prime direction, which usually means it can be double that size in the sets! The wind was supposed to be light, but perfectly sailable at around 15-18 knots. It was a little bit cloudy, but hey, you can’t have everything. My friend has a little boat, so we organised that to head out to the reef, but as well as transport, we also use the boat for safety if needed as we all know the spot pretty well.

LOGISTICS

Getting out to the break is not simply just loading a van and going sailing. We have to plan what gear we need, to take as the boat is only a 4.7m Zodiac, so it doesn’t have a great deal of space. For this forecast, I took one board, three sails, three masts and two booms. We loaded up at my friend’s house and then attached his trailer to the car before driving about an hour to reach the launch spot. Once there, it’s about a 45 minute boat ride to the reef and that is when you really start getting excited. Everything has to be carried out as efficiently as possible, but we are now well versed with the process, so everything went to plan.

FEAR FACTOR – THE WAVE

At this size, Tenia can be dangerous. It is a South Pacific swell, which I think are the most powerful in the world. Tenia is a reef break with live coral, so if you touch the bottom you can get seriously injured. At this size it is a technical wave, but I think Cloudbreak is a bit faster. Tenia can be a bit choppy, which makes it suer tricky to ride it properly. The channel is about sixty metres deep, so it never closes out. In this sense it’s a bit like Jaws. However, riding the wave and performing on it can be difficult. It can be so fast, and with even the slightest bit of chop, you bounce quite quickly on the wave, which makes it super hard to set the rail and perform a proper turn. My goal is to always try and perform as well as I possibly can on those massive waves. To be perfectly honest, it is scary out there. When you have up to double mast high waves behind you, essentially chasing you with speed and serious power, you don’t want to crash. My friend Ivan got caught by a monster set and was held down for a long time. When he popped up, he still had to take the rest of the set on this head, which was tough for him, but thankfully, everyone survived.

THE CREW & SAFETY

We had a pretty solid crew this day; Titouan Galea, Clement Colmas and Arthur Guillebert, who are all experienced sailing this reef break. We also had a jet ski which we had access to in the scenario that a rescue was needed, which helped to make things a bit safer. On camera was Gill Chabaud, who managed to score some amazing images, so that we can look back on this day with fond memories. This session was pretty serious and safety is always paramount with waves of consequence such as Tenia.

THE SESSION

When we first arrived the wind hadn’t kicked in yet. It was only about 10-12 knots, but as there wasn’t too much wind the waves were looking super enticing because there was hardly any chop. It was not looking huge to begin with… don’t get me wrong, it was big, but nothing out of the extraordinary. Despite the borderline winds, I decided to give it a try anyway. When you are there watching those kind of waves – you just have to go in. If you don’t go in then you just wait on the boat the entire day. Fortunately, I managed to catch a few waves despite the light wind. I had a bit of fear as it was so light, but I know the spot and my own limits well, but even so, I took it carefully by deliberately not taking any unnecessary risks. I did not attack the first waves and just made my mark at the spot. After the first wave was in the bag, my nerves disappeared, before quickly being replaced by a massive surge of adrenaline. It was on!

The session turned out to be incredible, there was a lot of big sets and everybody scored at least one bomb. The beginning was light and beautifully clean, but as the wind picked up there were also some steps in the wave, which made things tricky to say the least. The bombs in particular were super hard to ride because they start breaking further out in the pass. It is super hard to set your rail and draw proper lines when it is like that. I had a couple of aerials which felt amazing. It is always my goal to land at least one air during a session, but when it is huge like this, that is pretty scary to do. You never know what can happen as your timing needs to be impeccable. If you hit the lip even just a fraction of a second too late, or without perfect timing, you can catapult and go straight over the falls… or you do an air and get stuck in the whitewater, which can be extremely scary as you can get really hammered. The best option is to hit the lip a bit earlier than normal and go for a lofty air and land mid face, which is what I did. I had one big wave with an air and a couple of solid turns. I caught one huge wave, but I had to go straight… the wave was so big and almost slabbing on the reef. It was also extremely choppy, so I set a high line and just gunned it down-the-line. It was still a great ride and I felt a lot of adrenaline. When you are on a wave of that size, it is still a challenge. I crashed a couple of times and luckily escaped unscathed, which certainly isn’t a given at Tenia.

I caught a couple of bombs with the winger, Titouan Guala, but it was so scary to do this. It was gnarly because Titouan is very good with the foil and he was really deep on the wave with me. We were riding very close together, almost too close, and I was just thinking about what happens if we crashed? What would happen with that foil? Etc: “Don’t try this at home!”.

WEAPONS OF CHOICE

I rode a 70L quad made by Keith Teboul specifically for me to ride special reef breaks. This board works really well until it’s mast high, but when it gets over mast high it is actually a bit short. When it is big and choppy like this, I personally feel like I want more nose and a longer rail to be able to manage the chop and set the rail without nose diving. When it’s big you perform longer rail turns whereas when it is smaller and hollower you are more dancing in the pocket. I was using MFC fins, 13cm in the back and 9cm in the front. I was riding with my 4.5m Goya Banzai, which is the biggest wave sail I use. When the wind picked up I could have been on a 4.2m, but I stayed on my 4.5m all day long. When the wind picked up it was a little bit big – especially as you only need enough sail to catch the wave – as once you are on then you have more than enough power.

APRÉS SESSION

When the session was over, we still had a few hours travel in the boat and the car to get back home. We had to clean the boat when we made it back and pack all of our gear. In the car we were talking about our highlights and how the session was for us. Thankfully, it all ended well with nobody getting injured or being in danger. There was no broken gear either, so that was all good. We were so tired after the mission, so there was no special celebration, I just ate dinner and crashed out totally exhausted. I saw the photos and videos the day after which was cool to relive some of those moments. I was pretty stoked about how everything went down. The reef works pretty frequently but it’s not so often that it is this big. It is quite a mission, so it’s not always accessible. That day might have been the biggest day I have ridden out there. it was definitely in the top two – it was solid!

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