Photo: Courtesy BWWT

An official big wave event at Jaws? Finally! Early last year the ASP acquired the big wave world tour from founder and director Gary Linden, and much excitement ensued. Might this mean some of the ASP’s Top 34 be allowed to compete at some of the venues should they wish to? Seeing as the Eddie doesn’t run every year, how rad would it be to see guys like Kelly and John John competing in 25-foot surf more regularly!

Anyway, yesterday the ASP announced the new schedule and venues for this year’s 2014/15 tour. The biggest piece of news being the very welcome addition of Jaws and Dungeons. Mavericks, on the other hand, has been dropped. This will come as a surprise to most considering the success of last month’s Mavericks Invitational, won by South African loon Grant ‘Twiggy’ Baker. But according to the ASP it was the event’s organisers decision to sit out for now, which Jeff Clark had already alluded to back in October during the Mavs Opening Ceremony:

“As I’ve always said, Maverick’s will take care of itself,” said the big wave pioneer and contest director. “Maverick’s for this community and Northern California is just the best big wave in the world to hold an event, and we have something really special here and we’re going to continue to take care of it. The best surfers in the world come here to test their mettle. This is the test of tests.

Not far up the coast, the Nelscott Reef leg in Oregon is another one to have been axed from the tour.

The tour is otherwise set to run a flexible two-part schedule, activating events in both hemispheres in line with optimum swell windows:

Southern Hemisphere (April 15, 2014 through August 31, 2014):
– Punta de Lobos, Chile
– Pico Alto, Peru
– Dungeons, South Africa

Northern Hemisphere (October 15, 2014 to February 28, 2015):
– Todos Santos, Mexico
– Punta Galea, Basque Country Spain
– Pe’ahi (Jaws), Maui HI

“This year’s BWWT schedule is a great start to the new season,” Peter Mel, former big wave champ and ASP Deputy Commissioner, said. “The addition of Dungeons and Pe’ahi really cement the foundation of this Tour in determining the world’s most comprehensive big wave surfer. The variety of each of these breaks and the culture of the local communities makes this a very special thing to be a part of.”

While we can’t yet confirm whether each of these events will be broadcast live on the internet (the ASP has yet to comment on this and the challenging time pressure that comes with forecasting XXL swells might well pose problem), we’d like to think at least a couple of the most reputed stops on tour will offer fans live viewing.