Weird Waves; Dylan Graves Texas Tanker Surfing!

Here’s a brand new episode of the funnest, silliest web series going, featuring Dylan Graves’ round the world quest to surf all the weird waves the globe has to offer. The last episode saw Graves head to the land locked state of Wyoming to sample its standing river wave, which only pops up every now and again when the conditions are just right. If you missed it, you can give it a watch here.

In this brand new episode the boys head for Texas to surf the waves generated by the bows of giant tankers as they pass through the Houston Ship Channel, which is one of the US’ busiest ports. Tanker surfing was pioneered by James Fulbright, in 1994 after he met a sailor who said he had been swamped by a wave coming off the bow of a passing ship. James and his pals kept their endeavours quiet for a few years, but in 2003 agreed to tell their story in Dana Brown’s documentary ‘Step Into Liquid’ which features a sizeable section on off shore tanker surfing. Instead of getting a boat out into the centre of the channel though, in this clip the boys surf the waves as they meet the land at the edge of the channel and peel along a harbour wall.

‘The size and shape of each wave depends on the size of each passing tanker’ explains the talking pizza slice which narrates the series ‘the bigger, the bing bang boodley better’. It ain’t high performance, and it ain’t charging, but it looks like a lot of fun. If this doesn’t quench your Friday evening novelty wave web clip thirst, we’ve got  five more clips featuring our favourites from around the world here.