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Voices from “The Eddie”

As people like to say… “Eddie Went”

Matthew Kent
Credit Matthew Kent / redringstudio.com
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redringstudio.com

After a six-year wait and one false alarm… The “In Memory of Eddie Aikau” big wave surf competition was a “Go”. 

Hawai‘i’s John John Florence came in first picking up the $75,000 prize in front of an audience estimated to be around 15,000 people strong.  The invitation-only contest can only run if the strict size, weather and direction requirements are met, and the Eddie has now only run nine times since its inception in 1984. 

Nick Yee
Credit Nick Yee

HPR’s Nick Yee was in the crowd to capture a few stories.

Clyde Aikau, the brother of Eddie Aikau began the day by addressing the crowd.

Maui based Waterman Dave Kalama reflected on the experience.

dave_kalama.mp3

Matthew Kent
Credit Matthew Kent / redringstudio.com
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redringstudio.com

Zak Noyle is the official (in water) photographer for the competition.

zak_noyle.mp3

Matthew Kent
Credit Matthew Kent / redringstudio.com
/
redringstudio.com

Visitors began camping around the bay on Wednesday to secure a good vantage point as well as avoid the traffic which backed up north shore roads for hours.

Kyle Womack is from Kapolei who camped overnight with friends.

Kyle.mp3

Nick Yee
Credit Nick Yee

Logan Garrett is from Wai‘anae and scored the souvenir of the day…. A broken competitor’s board that washed in.

Logan.mp3

The most tragic story came from Justin Troop jumped a plane from Miami, Florida to attend the days event, and brought his drone to get aerial footage.   

justin_drone.mp3

Keone Downing is one of the past winners of the Eddie and helped make the final decision to run the competition.

Downing.mp3

Nick Yee
Credit Nick Yee
Randy Rerick

Randy Rerick is the former director of the Triple Crown and acting Beachmaster for the Eddie.

Eddie_022616.mp3

The contest honors the life of North Shore lifeguard Eddie Aikau who was lost at sea after an accident during a storm encountered by the H?k?le‘a.

Nick Yee’s passion for music developed at an early age, as he collected jazz and rock records pulled from dusty locations while growing up in both Southern California and Honolulu. In college he started DJing around Honolulu, playing Jazz and Bossa Nova sets at various lounges and clubs under the name dj mr.nick. He started to incorporate Downtempo, House and Breaks into his sets as his popularity grew, eventually getting DJ residences at different Chinatown locations. To this day, he is a fixture in the Honolulu underground club scene, where his live sets are famous for being able to link musical and cultural boundaries, starting mellow and building the audience into a frenzy while steering free of mainstream clichés.
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