Behind-The-Scenes Of Liam O’Brien’s 12-Second Cloudbreak Screamer

The late Charlie Munger — Warren Buffett’s business partner — once said that “envy” was the worst of all sins since it generated no pleasure. 

Easy for a man worth $2.6 billion to say.

Speaking of envy, Nathan Hedge, tube-sensei and Surfing Australia High-Performance Coach (a position funded by the Australian government) took recent Stab In The Dark grad Ethan Ewing, Molly Picklum, Morgan Cibilic, and Liam O’Brien to Fiji for some lefthand tube training before the CT heads to Tahiti.

Why Fiji and not Teahupo’o? The forecast looked too primo for Cloudbreak to pass up and Tahiti looked so-so. It was nervous moments for Hedgie though, who put his street cred on the line to make the trip happen. “We’ll see, keeping it mellow, I don’t want to talk it up too much in case it’s not good,” he said on the way to Tavarua. “Fiji does what Fiji does. It feels like there will be moments and nuggets, but it won’t be perfect the whole time…”

It was perfect the whole time. 

As you’ll see in the clip above, the whole crew got what they came for. However, Liam O’ Brien got more than he imagined — a 10+ second inside bowl bender that he navigated like a prime Ferdinand Magellan. “Best wave I’ve gotten in a while,” he said. “It was the last board I hadn’t broken left on the boat. I had no confidence for a lot of that ride but… we got there.” 

The wave became the pigdog heard ‘round the world yesterday, making its way swiftly across Insta.

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All five of these surfers will be headed to Tahiti in one week for the Outerknown Tahiti Pro, where the forecast is looking real promising. 

For us goofies watching, four Aussie pro natural-footers jumping from Fiji to Tahiti on their government’s (and sponsors) dime is more than enough to elicit Munger’s greatest sin.

Make your picks for Tahiti, and yes, you’ll be seeing LOB’s wave in our Spectacular Waves 2026 feature, coming at years’ end.