Ross Clarke-Jones

Eddie 2024, Best Rides Of An Iconic Day

The Rip Curl Eddie Aikau Invitational, starring winner Landon McNamara, Luke Shepardson, Billy Kemper, Jamie O’Brien, Ian Walsh, Jake Maki, Ross Clarke-Jones and Joey Cadiz.

Riding big Waimea Bay is both a wild adrenaline rush and a quite subtle game of inches. You’re playing cat and mouse with an uneven rock ledge and a lot of swell energy, and you’re riding a board way bigger than you are. All the elements scream “CHARGE!” Yet even as you’re charging, all kinds of tiny things are happening. Little shifts of the board underfoot. Wind holding you up a fraction longer than you thought it might. You draw a simple line and it works, or it doesn’t. There’s a deep layer of grace and beauty under the wildness, and nowhere was it plainer to see than during yesterday Rip Curl Eddie Aikau Invitational, when the next generation of big wave greats showed all the skills and qualities this amazing event asks of a surfer. Here’s some of the best rides of an iconic day — and a word or two from Uncle Clyde Aikau, keeper of the flame.

The Hold Down Season 2- Surfing Legends

RCJ, Hoyo, Jeremy Flores, Tommy Carroll and Mark Richards feature in this Quiksilver powered episode of The Hold Down.

Backlit Beasts At The Right

Kerby Brown, RCJ, Mick Corbett and crew score a cinematic session at the slab on steroids.

West Oz's Infamous Slab "The Right" Rages Again. | Sessions

As the Southern Ocean's 2018 winter wave season goes full tilt, big wave rider Ross Clarke-Jones heads to West Australia's infamous slab, The Right, for a tow session that won't soon be forgotten.

From Nazaré to Waimea, Shipstern to The Right, no matter how quick in succession the swells may be, there's a chance you'll see Clarke-Jones out there, getting crazier waves than almost anybody else.
But let's not forget the locals, who always lead the charge when The Right comes alive and rages. Guys like Jake Osman, Brad Norris and Zac Haynes have logged some of the craziest barrels we've ever seen, and their performances in the edit above is no exception by a long shot.

GO MAD: This magic surf wax will teleport you back to the ’80s.

How does legendary big wave surfer Ross Clarke-Jones end up in any remote corner of the world at what seems a moment’s notice? With magic wax, of course! In a homage to the cult 1987 Quiksilver surf film Mad Wax, which launched RCJ’s career, the 51-year-old passes on the wax to a new generation of surfers to inject the fun and magic back into surfing. Watch as Kanoa Igarashi, Leo Fioravanti and Caroline Marks come face to face with the scariest thing in surfing — Ross Clarke-Jones in a full body wetsuit on the beach in Hawaii…

Complete with tunes from surf rock veterans GANGgajang, the throwback edit is as quirky as it is colorful. And the only thing better than the surfing is the acting… we think.

The carnage continues at Nazaré. | Sessions

Another bombing swell hits Praia do Norte, providing yet one more historic day for a hearty group of big-wave surfers. Watch it unfold here.

Let the big wave games begin. | Nazaré 2017

In this business, there are always false starts. A swell map goes purple, but the angle is off. The waves come, but the wind wreaks havoc. Nothing could be truer at Portugal's famed Nazaré, where the forces of nature are often laid bare in the form of massive surf. Did you already ride them?

Surfing the Big Waves of Winter | Nazaré 2017 Reel

After the big-wave season of 2015/16 – thanks to El Niño – we were honestly expecting a bit of an oceanic hangover come this winter. Well, turns out the party just kept right on raging into 2017 at Europe's favourite mutant, Nazaré.

Towing into XXL Nazaré Bombs | Sessions

You know when it's time to get nervous? When Ross Clarke-Jones shows up ready to surf, that's when. And there he was last Friday, roaming around Nazaré, staring out at the mountains rolling in off the Atlantic – with not even a glint of fear in his eyes.

On the day leading up to this swell, word started trickling in that the next day, Nazaré could be on for the tow crew. A barrage of powerful storms marched far across the Atlantic , and one was bound to shape up nicely for Europe's gnarliest big wave.

Well... it did.

This past winter was one for the record books with countless XXL swells and the right combination to run the Quiksilver Eddie Big Wave Event at Waimea Bay. It seems like we are always waiting for a swell to be big enough, but this year was borderline too big and safety was the top priority. We chatted with some of the surfers and water patrol to find out their stories from this year’s Eddie.