ABOVE: Moana Jones Wong drops into a career-making monster at the 2023 Da Hui Backdoor Shootout, the wave that established her cred once and for all at Pipeline.
Moana Jones Wong glows when she talks about the most dangerous surf break on Earth: Banzai Pipeline. Her eyes light up and she flashes a brilliant smile. Moana doesn't talk about Pipe like she's describing a place or some inanimate patch of reef—to her it's a being. "Anyone who surfs Pipe, who truly loves surfing there, will tell you that Pipe is some kind of entity," she says. "It's something more than a wave. It's alive."
When Moana talks about Pipe, it's like hearing about a teenage crush—intense, shameless, unmanageable. "Pipeline can make you go crazy over her and make you want to surf out there for the rest of your life," she says. "It's like a relationship: The more time you spend with her and get to know her, the closer you get. You understand the ins and outs and moods and what makes her happy or sad."
Which is rich, because shortly before catching the "wave of her life" at the break in 2023, Moana thought of cutting ties completely. Things had been going well for Moana in 2022; she beat five-time world champion and Olympic gold medalist Carissa Moore to win the Billabong Pro. But during an early heat in the 2022 Vans Pipe Masters, a wave bucked Moana off her board and bounced her on the reef, leaving her with a concussion and doubts about ever surfing the wave again. Was this relationship worth devoting—or losing—her life to?
Then, a week later, at the 2023 Da Hui Backdoor Shootout-a local, highly respected, if-ya-know-ya-know event that takes place every season at Pipeline—Moana was invited to compete on a team with four extremely accomplished surfers, like four-time Peahi Challenge winner Billy Kemper, Big-Wave World Champion Makua Rothman, Pipeline specialist Kala Grace and Tahiti's brightest young surf star, Eimeo Czermak. Although still shaken from her wipeout the week before, she couldn't say no and—just her luck—paddled out into the biggest Pipe she'd ever surfed.
Moana (left) with friend and filmmaker Shannon Hayes, all smiles (as usual) post-win at the 2023 Vans Pipe Masters.
"Third-reefing" is what they call it when the swell is so big that waves break a half-mile out to sea, on Pipeline's "Third Reef." They roll through and bury the lineup of surfers sitting fifty yards from shore. "It was the biggest I'd ever been out in, and I was so scared," she recalls. "I did not want to be out there that afternoon."
The fact that her teammates were dropping like flies didn't help. Billy was seriously injured in a wipeout and had to be carried in by lifeguards. The next day, Moana watched Makua and Kala get hit by waves so hard their helmets were ripped off. She could hear ambulance sirens wailing down Kamehameha Highway toward ehukai Beach Park, the red lights flickering through the public access trail. Dodging giant, wash-through sets with only her teammate and childhood friend Kala with her, she thought, "I am not catching a wave today, I'll just paddle in."
Just as the horn blew to signal the end of their heat, a perfect ten-foot (Hawaiian-scale, which means wave faces can be twenty feet or so) set came right toward her. She was deeper than Kala, who gave her that "You going?" look. Moana put her head down and stroked into what many would call "the wave of the winter" that season: a solid, experts-only steep drop behind the peak into a deadly tube that spat her violently into the channel.
"All day, everything in my body was telling me don't go, but that one came through and something said go! That single wave meant more to me than when I won the Championship Tour event and beat world champions—it meant more to me than anything that ever happened in my life, which is crazy because I literally was going to quit surfing Pipe last week." Romance, right?
"You can see in her eyes how deeply connected she is to the break," says pro surfer Kala Grace of her childhood friend Moana, seen here at the opening ceremony of the 2023 Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational. "She knows exactly what wave she wants and won't even look at a wave if it's not 'the one.'"
"I watched that legendary wave just after the horn at the Shootout last year, and I was absolutely blown away and inspired," says Carissa of Moana's ride. "That wave was so heavy. This tiny human got the best barrel of the day. And not the best for a woman, but for anyone."
While Moana had been thinking about quitting Pipe, there was a time when she considered giving up surfing entirely. Raised on the North Shore of Oahu, the now-24-year-old, like dozens of other surf-obsessed kids on the "Seven Mile Miracle," competed from an early age. By 15 she'd won four amateur national titles and was already competing against adult women in the World Surf League's Qualifying Series for a spot on the coveted World Tour.
On her way to the qualification prize, her momentum was thwarted by a nasty MCL tear, a fairly common knee injury among surfers. But during those six months of recovery out of the water, her main sponsor dropped her (another common injury of a different kind among surfers).
Feeling betrayed by a brand that had supported her for years—and an industry that seemed impatient and cold—Moana stepped back from surfing. She enrolled at the University of Hawaii West Oahu, got off social media, was working three jobs at one point while getting financial assistance and still making barely enough for rent and food. Hardly a year after the accident that sidelined her surf career, life was feeling a little like rock bottom.
"When I was younger I was like, 'There's no way I'm going to college. Screw that. I want to be on the Championship Tour, so that's not happening.' But then when that all happened I was like, 'Maybe I'm not supposed to be surfing.' So then I just transitioned into school and kind of stopped surfing for a little bit. But after my knee eventually healed, something started drawing me to Pipeline."
"What keeps me coming back to Pipeline every time is the challenge," says Moana, pictured above on one of the waves that propelled her to winning the 2023 Vans Pipe Masters. "Even when I'm old and beat up, I'll still want to surf out there. A wave out there is the greatest high in life."
Moana says that she's cripplingly shy—which is a problem for someone drawn to the most watched, photographed, webcast, live-streamed, scrutinized wave in the world. During her first couple of years back, she'd paddle out a hundred yards down the beach to avoid the judging eyes of her friends and visitors from the surf industry watching from the beachfront "team houses." It was as if she wanted to be the invisible surfer. Pretty difficult, as she was scoring some of the best waves a woman had ever caught out there.
"Growing up, there were some women surfing Pipeline, but I never saw any getting crazy ones, you know?" Moana says. "You can't really look up to someone who's just surfing Pipe—you look up to someone who's excelling, someone getting the same types of waves as the men and making a name for themselves out there. You always hear about the 'King of Pipeline'—Gerry Lopez—but I never heard about a queen."
Within a few years Moana certainly made a name for herself out there, simultaneously graduating from university with a new degree in Hawaiian health and healing and a new main sponsor, Volcom, which paid her to surf professionally again. The moniker "Queen of Pipeline" was already being whispered before she was officially crowned in 2022.
Entering as a wildcard in the Billabong Pipe Pro, a sanctioned WSL event for the world's top twenty-two women surfers, Moana dominated the field and found herself in the final heat against Carissa. Moana beat the Olympic gold medalist handily. After the event, Moana kicked off the competition season as the number-one-ranked woman surfer in the world.
"I really admire Moana's dedication to mastering a spot like Pipeline," says Carissa. "Her time and effort out there have helped to pave the way and raise the bar of what's possible for women in waves of consequence. I have so much respect for what she does for the sport of surfing."
"Surfing is a huge part of our culture, but so is the language, the dance, the instruments and the music," says Moana, seen above at the opening ceremony of the prestigious Eddie, into which Moana was invited as an alternate surfer; when she's not surfing, the "Queen of Pipeline" also dances hula. "Just like hula, surfing for Hawaiians is not just a sport—it's a cultural expression."
Actually, not solo-solo. Moana married Tahitian surfer and fisherman Tehotu Wong when she was only 21. I ask Moana if jealousy is ever an issue—Tehotu having to share her with Pipeline—and if he ever begged her to sit a particularly dangerous session out. "No," she laughs, almost regretfully. "He never says it's too big, only eggs me on. I wish he held me back a little ... but he loves to see me happy out there."
Along with her sponsorship obligations, Moana runs the Moana Surf Club. Now in its fourth year, the club is a community outreach/mentorship program for girls to surf and bond with one another. "It's awesome because I watched how these girls have created this supportive girl gang, something I never really had growing up," Moana says. "I'd be with the boys 24/7, getting rousted, and had to be super tough, so it's nice seeing this loving environment."
Preparing for this year's North Shore season, an El Nino winter during which waves are forecast to be exceptionally active and XL, Moana received both an alternate invite to the prestigious Eddie Aikau Big-Wave Invitational and another to the 2023 Vans Pipe Masters. Running an updated format for the event, where all competitors in the Pipe Masters surf three non-elimination rounds, with the top three scores from all rounds deciding which four surfers make the final—Moana barely squeaked into the last, stacked heat. Then she did what queens do: She took the throne, bagging two supercritical waves, and outsurfed the three other women— Carissa Moore included.
Heart perpetually on her sleeve, Moana broke down when she heard the score proclaiming her the 2023 Pipe Master and cried unabashed tears of joy, the zillion cameras pointed at her be damned. The $100,000 prize was just icing.
I ask her if that crown feels heavy now, with all the expectations that come with being called the Queen of Pipeline. "Nope," she shrugs, her eyes twinkling. "I finally feel like I deserve it. Maybe not before that one wave last year at the Shootout, but now I'm like, 'OK, you can call me that. But only because I feel like I earned it.'"
