Words and photos: Peter ‘Joli’ Wilson
In talking about the contests run at Cloudbreak in Fiji you can’t leave Andy Irons out of the discussion. He won one Quiksilver Pro over his close friend and travelling partner at the time Cory Lopez, and finished a close second to Damien Hobgood in a 2004 final that has to rate as one of the best. Damien had scored a 10 and a 9.9 in solid 8’-10’ Cloudbreak and Andy needed the perfect 20 points to win and he came very, very close. I’m going from memory now as it’s over 10 years ago, but I do remember Andy getting a perfect 10 and backing it up with something like a 9.80. Nobody wanted to take the final away from Damien but I can recall a lot of crew in the channel wishing Andy had of nailed the perfect 20 score. He was right in the prime of his World Title dominance and it wouldn’t have surprised the crew watching if he’d pulled it off.
Andy relished the power of Cloudbreak, and seemed so casual in his approach at any size. Amongst the top pro surfers in the world only a handful surf this wave with the ease that Andy did, and the funny thing is all three that I’m going to mention come from Florida, Kelly Slater, and the Hobgood twins CJ and Damien.
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