NEVER SEEN LEGENDARY SURF TRIP FOOTAGE RECOVERED OF THE 2000 OP PRO.

Footage courtesy of Nalu TV

Mangalui CAPTAIN, Matt Cruden reflects ON THE HISTORIC TRIP. 

The OP pro was so much fun. We had a fleet of 4 boats, all captains were good mates, cruising together in convoy through Mentawai Islands for a 2 week window in June 2000. The mission? .... find the best waves possible to run a few heats with a bunch of the best surfers on the planet. So epic.

 Two vessels for all the judges and admin crew - Martin Daly on Indies Trader 2 and Big Dazza and his sons on Navistar. Two vessels for all the surfers - Mark Coleman (R.I.P) on Nusa Dewata had the female competitors, and myself on Mangalui Ndulu with all the male surfing competitors. 

Chasing waves all day, then mooring up at night and getting together for some beers and laughs.

We certainty had some big personalities with us on The Mighty Mango - Sunny Garcia, Andy Irons (R.I.P), Bruce Irons, Occy, Shane Beschen, Tim Curran, Sonny Miller (R.I.P) the legendary surf cinematographer and Matt George the very charismatic surf journalist.

I don’t think it had been done before and I’m surprised it hasn’t really continued, as it’s a great concept.

Definitely a tricky project of co-ordination with so many moving parts involved - boats, weather, swell, tides, opinions, communications, forecasts, opinions again….

We had a swell that was quite south for the peak of the trip, hung in that Rags / Maccas zone, and scored.

As you can see with some of the footage - Maccas with that direction at that size, most of the energy is focussed on the take-off area - super steep and committed with the barrel coming from behind you.

Not the dreamy easy Maccas everyone imagines that bends into the bay at an easy pace and some simple convenient tube time.

These legends would just go deeper and take off crazy under the lip and manufacture super long tubes where regular surfers would be taking off on the shoulder in those conditions and out on to the flats.

They all shred of course but you’ve got to love Andy as the standout. His backhand take-offs in waves like this are still unmatched to this day.

One of the funniest parts of the trip was after Bruce was doing his big airs one day and Occ (the rail to rail power surfer) conceded he’d never done one in his life, so the rest of the trip it was Bruce’s mission to teach Occy how to do an air on one of the Maccas ramps.

Occy won the contest, which was awarded on the final afternoon at Lance’s Right and the boys in the spirit of friendship comradery of a unique experience decided to split the prize money between themselves equally, so they were all winners.

Thanks again the crew at Nalu TV. To see more historic surf films head over to their website nalu.tv