{"id":7791,"date":"2013-02-25T06:00:01","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T02:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en-surf.147.189.161.244.sslip.io\/en\/?p=7791"},"modified":"2026-10-27T21:58:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T17:58:18","slug":"longest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surfdiscovery.org\/en\/longest\/","title":{"rendered":"The Longest Wave Ride in the World: The Bono Tidal Bore"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone knows about the world records for the biggest waves\u2014dropping down an 80-foot monster face at Nazar\u00e9 or Jaws. But what about the record for the <em>longest<\/em> continuous wave ride in the world? How long could a single ride last? One minute? Five minutes? Ten minutes? What about distance\u2014500 meters, a kilometer, five kilometers?<!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/surfdiscovery.org\/en\/images\/2013\/02\/\u00a3\u00a3\u00a3-Steve+King+.jpg\" alt=\"Steve King riding the longest wave on the Kampar River tidal bore\" width=\"615\" height=\"409\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>Get ready for this mind-blowing record: <strong>64 minutes of continuous surfing over a distance of 12.8 miles (20.65 kilometers)<\/strong> on a single unbroken wave!<\/p>\n<p>Imagine locking into a wave, popping up, setting your trim line, and surfing for well over an hour without ever getting off your board. Who set this incredible Guinness World Record? A humble railroad engineer and dedicated British surfer named Steve King.<\/p>\n<h3>Where Does This Miracle Wave Form?<\/h3>\n<p>You might guess Hawaii, Peru&#8217;s Chicama, or the endless point breaks of Australia. But this wave isn&#8217;t even in the open ocean! It is an extraordinary natural phenomenon known as the <strong>&#8220;Bono&#8221; tidal bore on the Kampar River in Sumatra, Indonesia<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>A tidal bore occurs when rising ocean tides funnel into a narrow, shallow river estuary. As the incoming sea water collides with the downstream river current, it compresses into a series of rolling, stepped waves that travel upstream against the river flow for tens of kilometers.<\/p>\n<h3>In the Words of Record Holder Steve King:<\/h3>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#8220;It was utterly incredible. I only hopped off because the wave finally ran out of river section. While riding, I spotted a few crocodiles along the banks, and I can tell you that adds some serious adrenaline!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been surfing for over 30 years. The Seven Ghosts tidal bore on the Kampar River was only pioneered by surfers recently, and I couldn&#8217;t pass up the chance to surf it. The wave travels at about 25 km\/h (15 mph) and reaches up to 10 feet high in sections. We saw several juvenile crocodiles\u2014and where there are babies, you know the big mothers are lurking nearby. But we&#8217;ve surfed the Amazon Pororoca before, which has plenty of wild creatures too. When you are on a wave like this, you just focus on the magic of the ride!&#8221;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>[justified_image_grid ng_gallery=288]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Indonesia never ceases to amaze surfers\u2014from the world-class reef breaks of Bali to the mystical river bores of Sumatra, the archipelago remains the ultimate playground for wave lovers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Discover the longest wave ride in history: 64 minutes and 20 km on the Bono tidal bore on Sumatra&#8217;s Kampar River in Indonesia. A true surfing record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":7792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1],"tags":[67,27],"class_list":["post-7791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs","category-bez-kategorii","tag-zvezdnie-serfery","tag-history-surfing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surfdiscovery.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/surfdiscovery.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/surfdiscovery.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surfdiscovery.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surfdiscovery.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/surfdiscovery.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33274,"href":"https:\/\/surfdiscovery.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7791\/revisions\/33274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surfdiscovery.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surfdiscovery.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surfdiscovery.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surfdiscovery.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}