Bells 81
Brand X Video courtesy of Bob McKnight
intro by Ken McKnight
posted 2003-07-15
Personal recollections of Bells 81, by Derek Hynd
Claw spreading word that an old friend down at the Otway Lighthouse has seen the swell jack the previous afternoon and has made a call for biggest Bells in maybe 20 years. The swell at Bells that arvo is a very clean and consistent 4 to 6 feet for the first round. I set some sort of record getting 10 waves under my belt against a young Barton Lynch.
Photo by Ken McKnight
Terry Fitzgerald feels bloody good about the situation that night - years of making his team travel to Bells with guns looks like paying off. He has his pet no-nose Sultan of Speed gun which is sprayed "Speed Thrills".
Most local and overseas pros have nothing bigger than 6' 3".
The Map shows a tight High drifting in on Victoria, meaning onshore and drawing the swell straight in first up in the morning, possibly going through a 180 degree wind shift by the afternoon and strengthening.
I'm at the Surfing World house with Bruce Channon and Hugh McLeod up the road from Zeally Bay heading towards the Rip Curl factory. It's around half a mile down to the bay, which very rarely gets a gentle shoulder high right in the corner.
We're up in darkness the next morning. There's a sound outside. It's a rumble. Not a normal mid pitch rumble when a surfer wakes to surf outside his window, but a very deep 'uber rumble'. It's coming from the sheltered bay. As the light unfolds, in the distance we see nothing untoward in the bay - it looks as flat as normal. But it gets lighter and lighter until what we think is normal calm water is a bay covered in froth and foam.
There's sudden adrenalin, but this is the big jolt, we are half yelling out NO!, half yelling YES!
At Bells it's a different wave, just like the stories Claw used to try to have us believe. There's a second reef stepped way outside the normal takeoff - making sense of the slight Rincon dropoff. It must head way out just like that.
I think Richo was out there early on v Bugs. Both were way undergunned... So no one had an advantage. This was the saving logic for alot of pros that day, not that they'd made a career mistake in travelling light. The swell was bigger than film might suggest. It's one thing paddling into 15 to 18 footers on a gun, gullys and hills of chop running all over the face, another to do it on shortboards. Richo just charges late and several times. Bugs doesn't get much of a look in. I recall MR out there in the bumpy morning doing really well off the bottom on his twin. If it's one thing the twin had then and still has now, it's bottom drive off the forehand.
Photo by Ken McKnight
I see Paul Neilson and Nat and I think John Pawson out at Winkipop riding some big ones. I know I have to get a few under my belt so out I paddle from Rincon to get swept across and hopefully miss a set at the wrong time... getting mashed on the Winki Button is a serious threat. I've got Dane after lunch, two heats after Simon and Bobby Owens heat. If I have an advantage, it's a 7' 0" twin fin wing pintail gun straight off TF's late 70's Sunset templates.
Out at Winki it's a brand new world, fantastic. There's so much draw coming back up the face that catching a set wave means paddling much further into it.
I cant remember the wind switching and the sky clearing but it did sometime around noon.
I remember Marc Price hung up in the lip in the stiff offshore - he might have been against Dave Hanson from Durban. Got an award for it.
I'm with my brother Rod watching from the top of the Bells carpark. Maurice Cole and Dane are parked somewhere near. I want to see how an Hawaiian like Bobby handles the paddle out. At the cliff edge I see him jump out from the corner of Rincon 40 mins before his heat with Simon. But something isn't right because there are 3 of them paddling. Dane is one of them. I get a little concerned when - my opponent, an incredible big wave surfer, is paddling out an hour and twenty minutes before our heat. Much worse, he has a red Aipa gun, bigger than my board. I think Bobby tries 3 times before making it out on his fourth go - he's borrowed Nick Carroll's 6'5" HB.
