‘Pipeline’s for the girls’: surfers break barriers on Hawaii’s toughest wave

For so long the reef did not exist for professional female competitors but moving there has proved the tide is turning

Across the boundless world of surfing, there is no beach break as notorious as Banzai Pipeline on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, the ultimate proving ground for surfers. Among many of its seductions, Pipeline promotes the purest brand of surfing: the art of barrelling.

The waves are so large that, as they begin to crash down on to the ocean, a tunnel often forms inside them. Surfers spend years trying to perfect the technique of barrelling; entering those tunnels, picking the correct line once inside and hurtling at breakneck speed to the exit before the wave crashes on them.