In the white of the wave.

The film industry has the Oscars, the surfer scene XXL Award: In California compete the world's best surfers about who in the past year the most spectacular giant waves has overcome. ONLINE blogs shows the nominees and their amazing feats.

 

60 kilometers before Los Angeles is Anaheim. A nondescript town whose sole attraction is Disneyland. Little known is that in the California nest stars like Gwen Stefani and Jeff Buckley were growing up. Even that specifically here on Friday at a kind of Oscars, red carpet before the Grove Theater is out, just know the least.

With the Billabong XXL Award, the Oscar of the giant wave Surfszene is the appearance of the wildest wave riders, over a full year evaluated. Performance sets the scene quite like an artist, when the surfers up to 20 meters high waves abreiten after them from jet skis or helicopters could move into it. Will also assess how many extraordinary waves without collapse of the surfers rode to an end. Only a few hundred athletes worldwide dare these Mutprobe.

In view of the photos and footage, with which the devil rides documented, the layman thinks: "The guys must be completely crazy." But behind the spectacular snapshots stuck a lengthy training and above all, a perfect preparation. Sebastian Steudtner from Nuremberg, Germany is the only big-wave surfers in the international scene, explains: "There are a few surfers around the world, like the Americans or Garrett McNamara Sebastian Sanchis from France that up to 20 meter high waves can surf."

Photo: BillabongXXL.com
Video: bac

"Waves of this size are rare," says Steudtner. "They are just a few days a year." The kick while surfing arises from overcoming them, in such heranzutrauen waves. What counts then, is the urge to ride the perfect: "When I surf, I'm fully focused," says the 24-year-olds. "You get nothing from the environment. I hear only the thunder of the collapsing water."

Weeks of preparation, seconds of pleasure

On the hunt for XXL wave surfers will be traveling. With their teams around the globe. Like migrating birds, they do so according to seasons, at the right time at the right place to be. A surfer can switch between the two seasons are divided. In winter months, November to March, for example, breaking the so-called Jaws Hawaii before or even the Belharras against France. In the summer months it attracts more surfers to the coastal Tahiti, there are large tunnel shafts, called Teahupoos.

BILLABONG XXL BIG WAVES Award 2009

The Oscar is the Surfszene to the best big-wave surfer of the award last season. The wave riders from around the world have one year time, with photo and video ihrerer spectacular rides around the $ 130,000 in total prize money to advertise.
Prices are available in the following categories: Ride of the Year, Biggest Wave, Monster Paddle-in, Monster Tube, Surfline Best Male Performance and the Girls Best Performance.
The award ceremony will take place on Friday 17 April in Anaheim in Los Angeles instead.
Internet: www.billabongxxl.com

"By traveling to get to fly around 70,000 miles per year," estimates Steudtner of Hawaii as a workplace, but also as his second home means. "McNamara and Sanchis expected up to 200,000 miles a year with the aircraft back." A stretch of about eight times the circumnavigation of the globe represents.

For a moment, for this short, the ultimate ride on the wave, these surfers everything. Time, which they ultimately riding on the wave, on the other hand, can be measured in a few seconds. Seconds, which sometimes days and even weeks of preparation time are facing.

"Every normal travelers checks in advance, whether the weather at the destination is good," says Steudtner. Pro Surfer lets the cold, because what they need are low-pressure areas, even better: a storm outstanding. What just a week earlier than breeze starts and developed into a local storm auswächst, a slowly rotating spiral that pushes apart the sea, brings the Swell. To give surfers the heavy swell, the big waves with it.

Hurricanes and storms, which spread terror in the Pacific, they are harbingers of a possible Big Days. These are those memorable days, which - will ride on the wave on a photo or film footage held - their chances on the XXL Award brings. Even among surfers is: The best actor deserves the Oscar.

Know where the shaft runs

When and if the wave breaks at one spot, however, is uncertain. A large part of their time in swallowing the surfers therefore besides the physical training the search for reliable information. At the online portal surfline.com for example, they check the conditions on the coasts. What they need are the exact wave predictions of meteorologists.

ON TO ONLINE blogs

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Interactive Feature: Surfing at the end of the world

Surfer Photographer Tim McKenna: "It is amazing that no longer happens" (15.10.2007)

Surfers in Hawaii: scissors never out of your shaft (25.06.2007)

Doctor wave in Indonesia: Surfing is good - for all (18.05.2007)

"Know before you go," reads the slogan on the website - for surfers like McNamara, Sanchis, and he is Steudtner program. Every six hours, the information in the network updated. When using these data emerges that 24 hours later, large waves on a coast to be taken, the professionals have long sit in the plane.

"Just to be good enough is not. You have to know where the shaft runs," it brings Steudtner to the point. All precise data for the Surf Alert's website provides NOAA, the weather and Ozeanografiebehörde of the United States. The information comes from countless buoys anchored in the sea, all movements at the sea surface to record and forward. NOAA was founded in 1970 as a facility of the Department of Commerce, the National Ocean and Atmosphere to coordinate services.

Locally, we pre-empt the jet lag, with the traveler at any normal after a long flight has to struggle. "Our goal is, on the water, before the use of jet lag," said Steudtner the perfectly organized Nuremberg. This means that out of the fliers and onto the shaft. Fatigue and low power use, only after about six to eight hours.

But at this stage has a surfer's Big Day is already behind him.

In addition to this year, nominated surfers, there are also among the surfing locations, as Oscar suspected apply. blogs ONLINE presents four of the favorites before: