A machine-like right that runs for hundreds of metres and is widely rated one of the best on earth.
Rifles is the wave northern Mentawai charter trips are planned around. It is a long, fast right-hander off Karangmajat that, on the right swell, produces rides so long that surfers routinely run out of legs before the wave runs out of reef.
Where HTs is about the perfect single barrel, Rifles is about relentless speed and length. It is often described as a racetrack, and that is exactly what it feels like.
The wave
It needs a decent long-period swell to break properly. When that arrives, the wave stands up at the top of the reef and simply runs, section after section, staying hollow and fast the whole way. Two hundred metre rides are normal and longer ones happen.
The wave is fast enough that the main challenge is not the drop but keeping pace. Getting a good one means committing early, setting your line and holding speed rather than trying to force turns.
On smaller swells it goes flat or fat and is not worth the trip. This is a wave that demands the right forecast, which is precisely why a mobile boat is so valuable.
Conditions at a glance
- Wave type: Right-hand reef break
- Best swell: SW groundswell with long period
- Best wind: S to SE offshore
- Best tide: Mid to high
- Best size: 4ft to 12ft
- Season: May to September
- Crowd: Moderate. It needs real swell to switch on, which naturally thins the numbers.
- Where: Karangmajat, North Mentawai
History and reputation
The Mentawais were opened up by boat, not by road. Through the 1980s Martin Daly and a small circle of others were quietly working the chain, and it stayed quiet for the best part of a decade. Then photographs and film from a 1992 charter aboard his boat, the Indies Trader, reached the surf magazines, and that is the trip usually credited with ending the secret. Accounts of who was aboard name Tom Carroll, Ross Clarke-Jones and Martin Potter. The northern islands came into play through that same boat-based era, though nobody has documented who first rode Rifles or where the name came from, so we have left the folklore alone. You will still see it listed as Kandui Right on forecast sites. That is just bookkeeping. Kandui is the famous left on Pulau Karangmajat, and this is the island's right, sitting on the opposite side of the same land.
Its reputation rests on what a single wave can give you. People come home from Karangmajat talking about one ride rather than how many they caught, and the barrel count on that ride is the whole story. What the clips leave out is how rarely everything agrees. It wants the swell, the wind and the tide lined up at the same time, and plenty of surfers have spent a week here without seeing that happen. The people who sell the place will tell you the same thing if you ask them straight. That gap between the footage and the average day is a fair part of the myth.
Access has changed more than the wave has. For the first decade the only way in was a charter out of Padang. Land camps arrived on Karangmajat in the mid 2000s, and this corner of the northern islands now has boats, beds and a short run to a lot of good reef, so when Rifles is working word gets around fast. Since August 2016 the regency has charged a surf tourism levy on visiting foreign surfers, whether they sleep on a boat or on land, under regional regulations passed in 2015. The amount has been raised more than once, so check what it stands at before you travel. Access rules and moorings are set by the regency tourism department rather than by any resort or charter company. Nobody owns this wave, and nobody can promise you an empty one.
Who it suits
Advanced surfers with good tube-riding instincts and the fitness to handle long rides and long paddles. It is a wave that rewards experience in fast, hollow surf.
Intermediates will enjoy watching it and are far better served by the softer waves in the nearby Playgrounds cluster, which sit a short ride away.
Surfing Rifles well
Step-up with a pin, and bring a spare
Your everyday board will get you to your feet and then get left behind. What works here is a step-up with a pulled-in pin: enough length to paddle into something already moving fast, and enough rail to hold a straight, driving line instead of a loose one. People who watch it every season reckon it breaks at much the same speed whether it is head high or a long way overhead, so the extra length is about control rather than about surviving size. Bring a second board and spare leashes. Boards break on this reef and the nearest surf shop is back in Padang.
Sit at the top, and sort the boat out first
The temptation is to slide down the reef to where it looks friendlier. Resist it. The top of the reef is where the take-off is, and the further down you sit the more time you spend under sets with nowhere useful to go. The other half of this is logistics. Rides finish a long way from where they start and there is often current running with the wave, so agree with your boat crew before you get in the water where they will sit and where they will collect you. Keep that pickup out in the channel, never over the reef.
Sit out the low tide
The tide call above is mid to high, and rising is the pick of it. Low is the one to skip: the sections stop connecting and the reef comes up under the fastest part of the wave, which is exactly where you do not want to make a mistake. Carry proper first aid on the boat and deal with coral cuts the moment you are out of the water, not at dinner. Flush them with fresh water, get the coral grit out, and keep watching them, because reef cuts here turn nasty quickly, the nearest clinic is a long boat ride away and anything serious means going back to Padang.
Wait your turn, and stay high
The most common visitor mistake is swinging on a wave that already has someone in it. From down the line you often cannot see them, because it barrels early and the rider is behind the curtain, so take off from the top, take your turn, and assume somebody is in there. The second mistake is riding it too low. Coming hard off the bottom scrubs speed this wave will not hand back, so set a high, tight line and let it carry you.
How to surf Rifles with WaveBorn
Rifles is in the northern Mentawais, one of the reasons charter boats push north when the swell arrives. Because it needs a specific swell to be great, it is a textbook example of a wave you want a boat for rather than a fixed base.
Our charters follow the forecast across the whole archipelago, so when a long-period pulse points at the north we move for it. The nearby Playgrounds mean the rest of your group still gets great, more forgiving waves on the same trip.
Trips that reach it: Ombak Kabau and Odyssey Mentawai .
Nearby breaks
Rifles sits within easy reach of Kandui, Bank Vaults and No Kandui , which is what makes this part of the archipelago so productive: if the wind or swell does not suit one reef, another is usually working a short ride away.
More breaks in North Mentawai
- E-Bay : A fickle, world-class left in the Playgrounds that barrels from start to finish when the swell has enough west in it.
- Burgerworld : A long, playful right-hand reef point in the Playgrounds that switches on when the heavier North Mentawai reefs go flat.
- Nipussi : A consistent right-hand reef in the Playgrounds that stays clean on north winds and needs less swell than its heavier neighbours.
- Hideaways : A world-class Playgrounds left that opens with a hollow ledge and runs into a long rippable wall, over reef that punishes greed.
Conditions here are a guide, not a guarantee. Our crew reads the swell, wind and tide each morning and puts you on the break that matches your surfing that day. See the full Mentawai surf spots guide or browse every break we surf.