A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

On October 29, 1991, a North Atlantic storm named Hurricane Grace met a tropical cyclone tracking along a Canadian-born cold front off Nova Scotia, and the two systems combined into what would soon be known as the Halloween Storm, or, as renamed by Sebastian Junger's hugely popular 1997 book, the Perfect Storm. While it killed 10 and produced an estimated half-billion dollars' worth of damage along the eastern seaboard (mostly in New England), the Halloween Storm also created some of the biggest and cleanest waves ever seen by East Coast surfers. Florida and North Carolina got the best of it, with some areas receiving beautifully groomed eight- foot-plus waves from November 27 to December 2, with the biggest surf—up to 15 foot—hitting on Halloween. The sun was out, the wind was lightly off- shore, and the water warm enough that most surfers didn't wear wetsuits. Scott Bouchard and Adam Chatteroff tried something new by using a personal watercraft to tow each other in to waves; a year later, surfers in Hawaii would use the same method to remake big-wave riding. The surf in the northeast was for the most part too big and stormy to ride, with wind gusts up to 75 miles per hour, although excellent smaller waves were found on the lee side of a few New England headlands and coves. Record high tides combined with the enormous incoming waves to destroy hundreds of beachfront homes and businesses. Seven Massachusetts counties were declared federal disaster areas, as were five in Maine and one in New Hampshire, with the bulk of the damage occurring on Halloween. All six men aboard the swordfishing boat Andrea Gail were killed; a fisherman in New York and another in Rhode Island both died after being swept from the beach, and two New Yorkers drowned when their boat capsized off Staten Island. In his book The Perfect Storm, a semifictitious reconstruction of what happened to fisherman Billy Tyne and the rest of the crew of the Andrea Gail, Junger imagines the comprehensive horror of being trapped at sea in the middle of a violent North Atlantic storm.

Statistically, a 40-knot wind generates a 30- or 40- foot breaking sea every six minutes or so; greenwater over the bow and whitewater over the house. Every hour, perhaps, Billy might get hit by a breaking 50-footer. That's probably the kind of wave that blew out the windows. And every 100 hours, Billy can expect to run into a nonnegotiable wave; a breaking 70- footer that could flip the boat end over end. He's got to figure the storm's going to blow out before his hundred hours are up.

Halloween Storm, 1991

Subscribe or Login