Drollet skipped the last swell at Teahup’o due to the extent of his injury. His presence was missed in the line-up and he had to watch Hawaiian chargers Koa Rothman and Billy Kemper slay his home-break. When Chopes flexed again recently, Drollet had no choice but to take back the throne.
He couldn’t help himself, he put his body on the line and scored this massive barrel.
Check out an excerpt of our feature on Matahi Drollet from Issue 584.
FROM ISSUE 584. WRITTEN BY BEN MONDY
Issue available on stands now or read the rest of the story in Tracks Premium.
Matahi Drollet is a 24-year-old surfer born into Teahupo’o royalty. Son of an iconic boat driver and younger brother to the legendary Tahitian freesurfer, Manoa. Aged 16, he won the XXL Award for one of the biggest waves ridden at the infamous slab. Since then, he has risen to the apex of the pecking order, mentoring the next generation of Chopes chargers. Thoughtful, patient, but with a showman’s desire to perform, we dive deep into a man that could shape how surfing’s most famous wave is ridden over the next decade.
“I wanted to get a huge one, so I called my brother, Manoa, because I needed the best driver to put me on the best, biggest wave of the day,” Matahi Drollet told Tracks. The day was Friday, August 13, 2021. Two weeks prior, Matahi had dislocated his shoulder exiting an eight-foot barrel at Chopes…on a foil board. We’ll come to that later.
The swell was huge. As big, if not bigger, than the Code Red swell of 2011, the benchmark for maxing Teahupo’o. On that swell, Matahi, then aged 13, had watched the carnage from his father’s famous yellow boat in the channel.
This day though he was the first one out, and beelined it straight to the outside, without even checking the waves from the channel. Shortly after he saw the biggest wave of his life at his local break rear up in the deep water. As the furthest ski inside, Manoa pressed the throttle knowing Matahi was ready. However, fellow young gun Kauli Vaast had the same idea and dropped in down the line. The Drollets, gracefully, pulled out and let him have it.
“Manoa said, ‘Okay, forget that…let’s just wait for the biggest bomb,’” recalls Matahi. “Kauli’s wave came at 9am. I waited nine hours, until we saw a wave the same size or bigger, and I knew it was my wave. So did Manoa.”
About 20 years before, Matahi was playing on the beach with his bodyboard, as he did almost every day. This time though his dad showed up with a surfboard. “I was bummed, but I had no choice but to ride it,” he said. “I remember my brother came out and pushed me on a wave and it all started from there.”
Matahi Drollet grew up at Mataiea, a tiny Tahitian beach village just around the corner from the surfing hub of Papara. His father, Bjarn, who learned to surf in Hawaii after attending boarding school there, had moved his family of five children to Mataiea from capital Papeete in the late 80s.
Bjarn was the first Tahitian to recognise the surf tourism potential and started a boat business driving surfers and photographers to the surrounding reef breaks, including Teahupo’o. A fair proportion of the iconic images of the wave you have seen over the last decades have been taken from his boat.
“I have two brothers and two sisters. Manoa is the eldest, and 20 years older than me,” explains Matahi. “I would go around to his house at Papara and see Kelly Slater, or Andy and Bruce. I didn’t know they were superstars, because Manoa never acted any differently around them.”
In the 2000s Manoa was known universally as the best Teahupo’o surfer of all time. He’d won the Trials of the Billabong Pro Teahupo’o in 2005 and 2007 and finished runner up in the CT event in 2008. “Manoa was the best surfer with the best style,” Michel Bourez told Tracks.
“From two-foot to 20 he was untouchable.”
During that time Manoa’s tow partner was Dylan Longbottom. Dylan had known Matahi since he was in nappies and made his first surfboard.To this day he provides all his paddle and tow boards.
After ditching the lid, Matahi kept surfing and from a young age started to exhibit both the natural talent and fearlessness of his elder brother. “I was surfing the outer reef out the back of Papara, and it was solid,” recalls Bourez.
“Matahi was around 12 and out on this old board with no leash, smiling as usual. A bigger set came, and he looked at me, and the cheeky bastard asked if I was going. It was probably the first time I saw the potential he had.”
Issue available on stands now or read the rest of the story in Tracks Premium.
