How to get under a rib engine with a sup, by Francois…
“The story of the Ferry wave, the SUp…and the Killer boat!
Ah ah…there are few of these days where you feel you lucky…cause you ve just got out from big trouble and that was very tight!!
That Ferry wave became lately a bit more trendy than usual from the Sup accessibility and it s not unusual to find good few riders every day there. Few weeks ago, My Sup mate, JJ, and I, decided to get there for the craic. Few sups on the water and some guys coming on boats!
Great stuff, we might ask them a lift further in the sea, and we actually manage to get JJ to jump in the boat for taking some footage from the session.
The 2 Lads are very nice…but the boat I jump in, seems to be…a bit dodgy…
The “Captain”, just lets me know the engine does not go on neutral, so we just better be careful when he picks me up…Anyway, should not be a big deal…
First wave comes…I asked him to drop me near the break…great stuff…little wave…the boat even surfed a bit the wave…Everybody s happy!!!
15min later, the other ferry is on sight…Let s hope there s gonna be a bigger surprise!!
JJ is on boat 2 ready to shoot and I ask the boat 1 to drop me closer to wave break as soon as i can see its quite a big one shaping up Yihiiiiii
Full speed on the dodgy Rib we getting catch our train!!!
Closer I say…closer… Ok I jump in the water with the sup and expect my “partner” to go off…bye Captain thanks for the lift!….
Now it where it gets interesting…
The wave is still shaping up, creating a nice shadow on the water, becoming actually at least 1.5m good vertical wall (not pipeline but for Dolly I can tell you it was good!) I start paddle as fast as I can but miss the 1st one (by choice or not, we don’t tell)
The second wave comes straight after, and for the info, the 3 or 4 waves created by the ferry come very very close to each others, so you find suddenly yourself in quite a messy area, especially when you compare few seconds before a perfect mega flat water surface…the water is sprayed a bit everywhere…
THis is it…
I paddle full speed, get some white waters in the face, go full on towards the right and eventually start to see a bit more of the surroundings…At my biggest surprise, what I see then is a vision of horror coming to my eyes:
Imagine the scene: The captain and his furious mad and unstoppable horsepowered 5m boat trying to surf the same wave but loosing all the control of it and going straight…LEFT…towards me!!!
that s it …
I am ready to get chopped for Dublin bay shrimps!!
The boat hits me and my lovely board and I we all go under.
Just have the 1/2second to try to dive as deep and as away from the propeller as I can…
I close my eyes…
Its dark there and I wait for either a violent contact with the boat or a sharp blade…
Nothing hit me for a second…but my leash gets caught in the propeller…
Off we go for a fast and furious horizontal drag under the water…
All this happens in few seconds…
I just have the time to try to reach my leash at my ankle to try get separated of my board and not get chopped off…or whatever else that I do not want to imagine could have happened to me…
after another second or 2 under the water…I feel released… the leash got cut…
I stay under the water…just in case…and eventually come back up…
touch my head, my legs and arms…Everything is there… JJ was laughing stupidly…Daren, my mate doctor, also on a sup, was all in panic and thought he was going to have to operate some minced meat on the water!!! and the captain coming back towards me checking if i was ok…
nicely i just told him…”please stay away enough…please 
Captain was just telling us how he tried to surf that wave but he did not expect the wave to be that big and he did not expect either to loose the control of his baby…Lucky the whole thing did not go upside down…the engine would still be on now;-)
Got really really lucky that day…and lesson learnt, next time we get some footage and action with a jetski!!!
See you on Dolly, stay safe on the water, and make sure whatever thing you use on the water you dont put yourself or others in danger!! ”
Francois from PureMagic Kitesurfing
Ps: Stand-up paddle boarding is very safe sport, and we teach it at Puremagic ina very safe way
