Watch: A Rogue Boat Just Drove Straight Through The Lowers Lineup
Malfunction, malpractice, or localism’s final boss?
A small Stab team was down at Lower Trestles this morning, capturing waves and soundbites for the upcoming EAST series with Mikey February.
“It was pretty pumping,” said our onsite producer Holden Trnka. “A bit slow, but when the sets came they were solid. Mikey got through three boards and eliminated one of them — all in all, a good day.”
Better for some than others.
As captured by Surfline and first uploaded by @lottrolls, a rogue boat mowed through the Lowers lineup around 3 pm local time, just after Mikey had left. Cruising at roughly 40 mph (65 kmh), the 30-foot sport-fisher ripped through a crowd of a dozen surfers, narrowly missing the inside stragglers who had to scramble to escape its path.
It’s astonishing nobody got clipped. At that speed, 14,000 liters of fiberglass is less vessel, more lethal weapon. Just ask anyone who’s been run over by Alan Sarlo.
We’ve yet to ascertain how or why this happened, but the leading theory is that the boat was either unmanned or the throttle got stuck and for some reason the captain was unable to steer. Based on the best screenshot we could capture, it appears there was indeed a person at the helm, but it’s not conclusive.
Perhaps Chris Ward going for a joyride?
At the time of writing, we have no idea where the boat ended up — but it was heading northward (toward Uppers) with some pace. Either way, it’s an incredibly dangerous situation and we hope everyone involved is okay.
The wild thing is, this was nearly the second time that one of Mikey’s EAST filming sessions was interrupted by a boat crashing through the lineup. Just over a month ago, we were on the South Shore of Oahu filming at Kewalos when a 75-foot shuttle boat came careening across the reef. On the tripod was one of Stab’s staff filmmakers, Blake Michel, whose clip of the incident went instantly viral.
Blake was also filming down at Lowers today, meaning he narrowly missed an iconic twofer — though this likely would have raised Stab click-farming suspicions.
Today’s blitzkrieg comes after an April 2020 incident at Lowers, when pandemic-rule-dodging surfer Don Abide attempted to boat into empty Lowers undetected — which might have worked, until his anchor broke and his boat was rolled through the crowdless lineup.
Lest we forget the most iconic lineup-crashing boat incident of all time — back at the 2017 J-Bay CT, when kamikaze rescue boat captain Oliver Tonkin got caught inside and was forced to ride a massive set the length of the point.
“I’ve never surfed a day in my life. That was my first wave!” Ollie told us after the incident.
More info on Lowers’ latest lineup pirate to come.
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