When footage of Kelly Slater’s wave pool first dropped in 2015 it broke the Internet. Nearly a decade later, weird wave maestro Ben Gravy just revealed a wave breaking off the wake of a ferryboat that rivals that man-made perfection.
In his latest YouTube release, Gravy heads to the Pacific Northwest and absolutely scores. When the vessel, tide, wind, and bathymetry all line up, its wake transforms into a clean, peeling section that looks more like a purpose-built wave pool than a boat wake.
Long before wave pools became billion-dollar infrastructure projects, surfers were looking for ways to ride moving water wherever they could find it. Ferry and tanker surfing dates back at least to the 1960s, when surfers around Galveston Bay, Texas, began experimenting with waves generated by passing ships. Over the decades, the pursuit spread to harbors, rivers, and shipping channels around the world. There are documented ferry waves in places as unlikely as Dublin, Portugal, and Germany. Gravy’s made it his life’s work to celebrate these aquatic anomalies.
The basic recipe is deceptively simple. A large vessel displaces an enormous amount of water. Add the right bathymetry, tide, and wind, and that energy can organize itself into a surfable wave. Of course, simple doesn’t mean easy. Gravy’s previous Oregon mission involved days of planning, local knowledge, careful timing, and plenty of trial and error before everything finally came together. He ultimately called it the biggest and best ferry wave he’d ever seen.
That’s really the appeal here. The wave isn’t supposed to be there. It isn’t on a map or surf forecast. It doesn’t have a famous name or a parking lot. It exists for a few fleeting moments because a boat happened to pass over the right piece of water at the right time. Surfing has always been about exploration and finding waves. Sometimes, you just have to be willing to take a chance and look where nobody else has.
Related: Meet the Mad Scientist Who Helped Create Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch
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