Thirty-two of the world's best big-wave surfers now have a window carved out on their calendars, even though nobody can promise them a day in the water. Organizers of the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational announced their invitee list Thursday, with 25 of the 32 surfers representing Hawaii, as the event's famously unpredictable holding period approaches for Waimea Bay on Oahu's North Shore.
The lineup includes some of the sport's most recognizable names, with Kai Lenny, Koa Rothman, John John Florence, Eli Olson and Aaron Gold invited to compete for Hawaii, according to Hawaii News Now. Australia sent four of its own into the field as well, with Ross Clarke-Jones, Ben Wilkinson, Jamie Mitchell and Felicity Palmateer earning invitations to represent their country. The contest's official site describes the event's mission plainly, noting that it “invites surfers, alternates, and legends to showcase their high-performance surfing at Waimea Bay on the North Shore of Oahu,” per theeddieaikau.com.
But an invitation only gets a surfer so far. The holding period for the 2026-27 event runs from Dec. 6, 2026, through March 4, 2027, and the contest will run only if conditions cooperate — specifically, if wave-face heights consistently reach 40 feet during that window, per the same event website. An opening ceremony is planned for Thursday, Dec. 3, ahead of the official waiting period, the station's report notes.
A Contest That Rarely Actually Happens
The Eddie's reputation for scarcity is part of what makes it legendary. The event has been held just 11 times across its 41-year history, most recently running in back-to-back years in 2023 and 2024 — a pairing that, according to Spectrum News, has occurred only a handful of times since the invitational's founding in 1985. The Inertia similarly reported that running in consecutive years has happened just three times since the event's inception.
Those two most recent runnings produced two different Hawaii-born champions. Luke Shepardson won in 2023, and Landon McNamara took the title in 2024, Spectrum News reported. Both men are back on this year's invite list, representing Hawaii once again, though nothing is guaranteed until Waimea Bay cooperates.
That caveat is not hypothetical. The 2025-26 Eddie never happened at all. Its 90-day waiting period, which opened Dec. 5, 2025, and was scheduled to run through March 6, 2026, expired without suitable conditions materializing, Spectrum News reported. The Inertia confirmed that organizers had required consistent 40-foot waves at Waimea Bay for that window, a bar the ocean simply didn't clear.
Why the Bay Stayed Quiet Last Season
The disappointment wasn't for lack of looking. Then-contest director Liam McNamara said the qualifying swell conditions simply weren't there in the 2025-26 season, despite at least one solid day of big surf, according to Spectrum News. The outlet also noted that competition at the Eddie is only green-lit when wave size, consistency and competitor safety all hit a narrow sweet spot simultaneously — a combination that can elude even a stretch of promising winter weather.
There was at least cautious optimism heading into that lost season. Rip Curl marketing general manager James Taylor told Spectrum News he was hopeful that El Niño conditions would develop by the end of 2026, setting up the kind of large swells the contest depends on. Whether that pattern materializes this winter remains to be seen, but it's the backdrop against which this year's invitee announcement arrives.
New Leadership at the Helm
This year's event also comes with a change in leadership. Organizers appointed 1990 Eddie champion Keone Downing as contest director, Hawaii News Now reported, putting a past champion in charge of deciding when conditions finally justify calling surfers to the Bay.
Rip Curl, which is sponsoring the event for a third consecutive year, rounds out an invitee field that leans heavily on Hawaii's deep bench of big-wave talent while still drawing a handful of international entries from Australia. For now, the 32 names are locked in. What's missing is the one variable nobody can schedule: a winter swell big enough, and clean enough, to finally send them out at Waimea Bay.
