"The ancient Hawaiian sport of surfing can be traced back  as far as 1000 years ago, as men, women, children  and even Hawaii's great King Kamehameha  enjoyed the thrill of riding waves." "In the earliest description of the sport by a visiting European  Captain James Cook observed upon watching a surf rider  in the year of 1777:" ""I could not help concluding this man felt the most supreme pleasure  while he was being driven on so fast and so smoothly by the sea. "" "Then in the 1800s, the waves fell flat  with the arrival of the Calvinist missionaries." "Shocked and outraged by the state of undress  and the easy mixing of the sexes that surfing fostered  the missionaries banned the sport." "The extinct Polynesian pastime was then reintroduced  in the early 20th century by Alexander Hume Ford  a globetrotting promoter, who set about reviving island tourism  by romanticizing surfing at Waikiki." "In 1912 came surfing's first international icon  Waikiki beach boy and celebrated Olympic swimming champion  Duke Kahanamoku, the only surfer to ever appear on a U.S. Stamp." "While traveling the globe giving swimming demonstrations  Duke became surfing's Johnny Appleseed  introducing his favorite sport to far-flung places like California  New York and Australia." "One of the fans enthralled by the Duke was a young Wisconsin  swimming champion named Tom Blake." "Relocating to Hawaii, Blake would go on to become  one of the 20th century's most influential surfers  through his innovative surfboard design, but most importantly  through his advocacy of surfing as a way of life." "By 1948, surfing had taken root along the California coast  where a skinny 10-year-old from Hermosa Beach named Greg Noll  found himself immersed in the emerging subculture." "Following in the footsteps of pioneers like Pete Peterson  and Lorrin Harrison, Noll eagerly joined the ranks  of these eccentric sportsmen, carving out an entirely new  and free-spirited lifestyle." "Those guys were all kind of gentlemanly." "It was a different era." "Something went to hell in the early '50s." "It's like somebody threw a light switch." "With the advent of the lightweight longboard, something happened." "It was the introduction of lightweight balsa wood  and the newly discovered aerospace material, fiberglass  that cut the weight of surfboards and paved the way  for a younger generation to begin picking up the offbeat sport." "There was a feeling of individuality and freedom from being able to ride this wave." "It made us feel free and I think almost rebellious." "The ride itself is such a bitchen deal, so rewarding..." "It becomes so important to you that it becomes the object around which you plan your life." "Everyone else is planning around money." "A bunch of guys come along and they go:" ""Screw the money, I'm having all the fun I can possibly have." "Girls are loving it." Here we are a bunch of scroungy surfers." "The shittier you dress and the funnier you talk..." "Which nobody understood the stuff we were saying, because it was surf jargon the more fun we had, the more it pissed off society." "With the devotion to riding waves came the creation of a new lifestyle  centered around all things beach." "This emerging lifestyle went in direct opposition to mainstream values  as surfers were often regarded as nothing more than beach bums." "My parents never saw me surf." "You know, they couldn't come to the game they couldn't see the score up on the board and couldn't understand what good it did." "Greg Noll's principal said, "What are you guys doing on the beach?" "What exactly...?" Not just riding, not going out to surf." "But, "What are you doing on the beach?"" "For the first time, they had a group of guys that didn't give a rat's ass, dropping out of the basketball team and just giving the whole thing the finger going, "I don't give a shit." "I wanna go surfing."" "For this new generation of surfers  surfing wasn't just something you did, but something you became." "Not just a sport, but a statement." "I think getting radical was part of the culture at that time." "After a while it was expected of us and therefore we fulfilled those expectations." "Some guy's dad had gotten back from the war and he had a closet of Nazi stuff he brought back." "Then they went over and took Flexies and rode down a storm drain for a mile underneath the town of Windansea." "And that was just having a good time." "But people see it and go, "What's this all about?"" "That behavior wasn't mean-spirited." "It was playful." "It was like turning a hearse into a surf-mobile." "Instead of dead bodies, it was all about living life to the fullest." "Amidst the mirth and mayhem of the fledging surf scenes  from Windansea to San Onofre, to Malibu, much homage  was given to the sport's Polynesian roots  with grass shacks, floral aloha shirts and the playing of ukuleles." "But on a winter morning in 1953, another Hawaiian import  landed like a bomb on the front porch of California." "I remember I was a 14-year-old paperboy delivering the Evening Outlook." "I got to work..." "I had looked at the front page and there it was:" "Buzzy Trent, George Downing and Wally Froiseth coming down what looked like a 30-foot wave." "This simple image sent shock waves through California's surf culture  triggering the first migration of West Coast surfers  to the Hawaiian Islands and Oahu's Makaha Beach." "It was Makaha's combination of smooth  crystal-blue warm water, and large, gently tapered waves  that helped create surfing's first accessible big-wave riding paradise." "At Makaha, if we had 10 guys on a good day, that was a lot." "You knew every one." "They were there every time." "To us, that was a crowd at the time." "You'd be out there for maybe about two, three hours and you would only catch, like, five waves." "You don't wanna mess up." "You don't have no leash and you're way out there." "When you get wiped out, there's nobody." "In the early days, we lived on the beach." "We had tents." "Then later on, we all got together and rented a Quonset hut for 25 or up to 50 bucks, and 10 guys would be in the Quonset hut." "It was cheap." "That was an upgrade." "It was easygoing." "No problems, no hassles." "And we used to leave our board on the beach there go to Waikiki for two days, come back, it'd be there." "Nobody would touch it." "The Californians were mentored  by Makaha's first generation of big-wave riders." "Surfers like Woody Brown, along with Wally Froiseth  George Downing and Buzzy Trent, had spent much  of the previous decade challenging Makaha's giant surf." "They were the astronauts of their era." "They were conquering waves no one had." "To me, those guys were bigger than life." "That trio of guys were the first really hardcore big-wave riders that set the blueprint for the next generation." "But it was 23-year-old George Downing  who carved the mold from which all other big-wave riders were cast." "I think George Downing, in a sense, is truly the original big-wave surfer." "Downing designed and built the first true big-wave surfboard  and was instrumental in exploring Oahu's other big-wave breaks." "They wanted to ride more big waves and Makaha doesn't get big that often." "And we had heard these fabulous tales about, you know this deep, dark, foreboding place called the North Shore." "Fifteen miles up the coast from Makaha was the North Shore  a remote 13-mile stretch of coastline backed up against  a patchwork of pineapple fields and taro farms." "I can remember coming out of the pineapple fields of Schofield and getting my first glimpse of the North Shore." "Here's this magical place laid out in front of you." "Suddenly they get to a place where all those dreams live." "You'd go another couple hundred yards "Shit, here's another place."" "At first, we didn't have a clue we had stumbled on something so fabulously magical and powerful." "They must have thought that they'd found nirvana." "The discovery of the North Shore was surfing's equivalent  of Columbus reaching the New World." "Nowhere else on Earth would there be found so many world-class  big-wave breaks in such close proximity." "What the Paris runways are to fashion is what the North Shore is to the world of surfing." "We were among the first Californians to dedicate themselves to surfing." "We were spending eight, 10 hours a day in the water doing nothing but surfing our guts out." "There wasn't any home life." "We spent our days on the beach." "That's what we did." "We surfed all day, every day, no matter what." "In those days, we never saw girls." "If you brought a date and sat her in the car while you surfed you never had that date again." "These guys came to surf." "And it was kind of unheard of." "You don't have a job you're gonna spend a couple of months here to surf." "No watch, no money, no car, no nothing." "Just shorts and a T-shirt." "There were no hotels." "There was a place in Hale'iwa that was a set of cubicles..." "You'd have guys sharing the place and getting mattresses from the Salvation Army and throwing them on the floor." "And, I mean, it was a scene to try to make ends meet." "There wasn't a lot of money, so if we wanted to eat we had to go diving." " We'd dive every day and get fish and lobster, and turtle in those days." "They would pick coconuts and papayas, and go fishing." "In those days, you could live off the land." "Guys would come from the mainland they'd patch our surfboards for a peanut-butter sandwich." "Pat Curren and I, we'd get in trouble." "We'd steal chickens or something." "I mean, the whole thing was waiting for waves." "We would do anything to amuse ourselves and each other so somewhere I had learned about how to put lighter fluid in your mouth and torch it off." "Actually, I did set the side of that house on fire." "They're just spending their days living in the sun and living a life that's not the '50s, gray-flannel-suit thing." "It's like an alternative thing the way Kerouac was and bikers were, except they're having fun." "That was the counterculture of its day." "You know, you were bucking the system and you went to Hawaii, and you rode waves." "They were the pioneers, not only of riding big waves but of the culture of surfing." "They set the pace, this kind of free-and-easy lifestyle." "That really was a unique period in history." "They were doing something so unique in the 20th century and there was a handful of them." "It wasn't like jazz, where there was the Chicago scene the New York scene." "This was it." "That tiny little epicenter those two dozen intrepid men, and the women that went with them living that life." "It only lasted a few years." "What a remarkable time that must have been." "As these surfers rode more and more of the North Shore's fantastic waves  the biggest wave of all still eluded them." "The spot, Waimea Bay, which began to break  when the rest of the North Shore was too big to surf." "But Waimea Bay was riddled with taboos and fears  as surfers of the '50s were haunted by the memory of Dickie Cross  a young California surfer who, in December of 1943  became trapped by a fast-rising storm swell  while surfing Sunset Beach." "Unable to reach the shore, he and fellow-surfer Woody Brown  elected to paddle three miles to the safer, deep-water  Waimea Bay." "But 50-foot waves were closing out the bay  and while attempting to reach shore, both were caught  by mountains of white water and ripped from their boards." "Brown eventually washed up on shore naked  while 17-year-old Cross was never seen again." "It spooked everybody." "They were like, "You can't ride there." "It's a killer." "We're not gonna go out there." "You're gonna die."" "Along with the death of Dickie Cross, Waimea's reputation  was steeped in superstition and dread  with tales that ranged from haunted houses  to human sacrifices at the heiau  or Hawaiian burial ground, overlooking the bay." "All of these things were whizzing around like a bunch of ghouls." "People really believed if you paddled out there was gonna be this goddamn vortex." "It'd be like flushing a toilet, and there go the haoles." "People thought you couldn't ride Waimea Bay." "They watched it, and they said, "Can't be done."" "You'd look at Waimea and wonder can the human body survive the wipeout?" "But the lure of riding Waimea was unrelenting  as during each swell, surfers would find themselves  standing spellbound on the shore, transfixed by the sight of the huge  perfectly shaped waves exploding off the point." "We'd go by there when it was breaking, and you're going:" ""That looks like a ridable wave."" "You could see that this had all the potential of being a great surf spot." "And at some point you just had to go, "To hell with it, we can do this thing."" "On a fall day in October of 1957  a handful of surfers converged on Waimea  as a 20-foot swell began lighting up the bay." "Sitting on the point, watching the huge, empty waves  with his buddy Mike Stang, 19-year-old Greg Noll  had finally seen enough." "He unstrapped his board, and with Mike Stang in tow  walked down to the water's edge." "Moments later, they were joined by fellow-surfers Pat Curren  Mickey Munoz, Del Cannon, Fred Van Dyke, Harry Church  Bing Copeland and Bob Bermel  who with Noll and Stang  paddled out to attempt the impossible." "It was obvious where the waves were breaking and we'd all had enough experience so that you know, you knew pretty much where to paddle to." "I remember paddling into the lineup and your balls were in your stomach, you know thinking the bottom was gonna fall out and something was gonna eat you alive." "I'm thinking, "I don't wanna get wiped out" because I know there's sharks here and I'm not into swimming with sharks, exactly." "We got out there, it was a big surprise." "It's, you know..." "It's not an easy takeoff." "I took off on a wave and went down the side and popped out the other end and went:" ""Shit, I'm still alive." "Nothing's happened."" "After we got a couple waves we go, "Hey we can do this," you know." "They broke the taboo." "They went and did it." "And once it was done, opened up the floodgates and it's like, "Okay now how far do we take it?"" "The following year of 1958  Waimea Bay blew big-wave surfing wide open as another migration  of surfers came charging onto Hawaii's North Shore  to campaign the huge surf." "They were out to ride the biggest swells  nature could produce." "So they built what came to be known as "guns":" "Long, narrow surfboards designed exclusively  for catching the fast-moving, 25-foot waves of Waimea." "I rode an 11-6." "It was first and foremost a wave-catching machine because if you can't catch a wave, nothing else matters." "Unlike the somewhat easy takeoff of Makaha  Waimea was a fear-inducing, 25-foot elevator drop  sometimes requiring more faith than skill." "It almost doesn't help to know what you're doing out there." "If you know too much, it intimidates you." "Everything is moving." "Nothing is constant." "It's so dynamic that you can't pre-plan it." "Not only are you riding this mountain, it's chasing you and you have to use your skill and ability to get away from this mountain but at the same time, use it to your benefit." "When you come down the face of a mountain, you're on fire." "Your heart is exploding, endorphins are busting out in your brain and you want to not just prove that you can do it but discover what you're made out of." "Apart from the challenge of learning to ride Waimea  was the even greater challenge of surviving the horrifying wipeouts." "You feel like a piece of lint in a washing machine because the force of nature you're in is so quantum beyond comprehension." "I can remember fracturing my neck at Waimea." "I went over the falls." "I hit the water and my neck went back in a whiplash and fractured my neck." "Lost all feelings in my arms and legs." "I was like a seagull full of oil just fluttering in the white water, out of control." "And some guys came over and helped me in." "I'm lucky to be alive." "And I think every single big-wave surfer could tell you a story like that." "We didn't have flotation devices, we didn't have leashes we didn't have helicopters waiting to scoop you out so if you fucked up, you were on your own." "By 1959, Waimea had become the epicenter of big-wave surfing  fostering a new crew of big-wave talents:" "Pat Curren, Peter Cole, Ricky Grigg, Fred Van Dyke, Jose Angel  Kealoha Kaio and Greg Noll, whose big-wave obsession  and even bigger-wave personality, would forever link him  with Waimea Bay." "Waimea was my gal, man." "She was like..." "I mean, I surfed with this beautiful woman who allowed me to get away with shit as long as I didn't act too outrageously towards her." "There was times where the surf would get perfect and you'd go out and catch a wave:" "You just make this thing and just have your adrenaline dripping out of your ears." "Paddle back out, do it again." "You get too cocky, you get your ass slapped a bit she'd let you know it." "But for the most part there was just this full-on love affair that took place for 25 years." "Nicknamed "The Bull" for his charging style  and clothing himself in a pair of loud jailhouse-striped trunks  Noll emerged as surfing's first big-wave celebrity." "He looked like a big-wave rider with that big, thick neck and he had the black-and-white striped trunks, which was genius." "Surfing needed Greg Noll." "When you look at those surfers they were a stoic bunch." "Greg Noll introduced flamboyance he introduced showmanship." "He introduced that colorful aspect that most people associated with hot-doggy Malibu." "Not just the way he surfed, but just the spirit of it." "He introduced that into big-wave riding." "He wanted to ride the biggest wave." "Greg made his reputation on taking off on the biggest, heaviest wave." "He stuffed himself into positions no one else would want." "He'd sit over deeper, take off later." "He'd spin around at the last minute." "I mean, he was surfing's, like, first hell-man." "He just liked confrontation." "He sought it out, in human terms and in big-wave terms." "I was really a young, skinny kid and I got my ass kicked from the time I can remember." "I went to school and had my ass kicked." "I went to high school and had my ass kicked." "And in some ways maybe there was something there that drove me to want to pursue big-wave riding, to make a statement." "I'm not a psychologist, I don't know." "All I know is, once you get into it, there's an adrenaline, a stoke and that high is so addictive that once you have a taste of it it's very difficult to not want more." "But for Greg Noll, big-wave surfing became more  than just an adrenaline fix." "It became his identity  his way of life and his business." "He was doing it to promote his surfboard business and worked to promote himself." "Greg was a good hurdy-gurdy man." "He knew how to self-promote himself." "As well as being a successful surf filmmaker  the surfboard business Noll began in his parents' garage  had, by 1965, become a 20,000-square-foot  surfboard factory built around his big-wave image." "I had a big building, I had 67 employees I made 150 boards a week." "I was just turning money over because I was selling them so cheap." "We were all competing with each other." "He was a board designer." "He was a really influential manufacturer." "He was the most complete surfer of the '50s and '60s, by far." "No one could come close." "Despite the dramatic exploits of Noll and the other Waimea Bay surfers  it was a naive 15-year-old girl from California  and her desire to join the Malibu surf set  that launched surfing into mainstream America." "Surfing is out of this world!" "You can't imagine the thrill of shooting the curl." "It surpasses every living emotion I've ever had!" "Hey!" "This is the ultimate!" "When you look at surfing's history everything has to be perceived as either pre-Gidget or post-Gidget." " You can't mean..." " I'm a surf bum." "You know, ride the waves, eat, sleep, not a care in the world." "From the movie Gidget in '59, when there was fewer than 5000 surfers, to 1963, there was probably 2 million surfers." "So in five years it went from 5000 to 2 or 3 million people doing it." "Following the film release of Gidget  surfing underwent a radical transformation." "Surf shops opened doors up and down  America's West and East coasts." "John Severson's Surfer Magazine began publication  and in 1962, surf-music pioneer Dick Dale sold 75,000 copies  of his album Surfers' Choice in Southern California alone." "Suddenly surfing was perceived as hip." "People assumed surfers were in the know." "Look at the life they were leading." "The sun, the bikinis, that sort of aura of sex, beach blankets and fires and then all that golden flesh in the sun." "Hollywood followed Gidget with a medley of surf exploitation films." "Then, in 1964, the Hollywood film Ride the Wild Surf turned its lens  on Hawaii's big-wave surfers challenging Waimea Bay." "Man, I've been hot to surf Waimea since I was 13." "But the question is, can we do it without winding up in traction?" "The theme is all the same." "Chicks in bikinis wringing their hands that their boyfriends are gonna go out and risk his life for some big wave." "It just..." "Man, it just makes me puke." " Man, is he getting creamed." " He's taking gas." "They show the film." "A guy's sitting in a fish pond without a ripple." "A big flat-out is coming!" "Then they cut to, you know, a 25-foot wave." "Guys are all pouring down the face of the wave." "Goddamn, man." "Who can believe that shit, you know." "Hollywood's always had a misconstrued view of surfing." "So it was more or less offensive to the surfing community." "All these ancillary artistic pursuits that surrounded surfing all came together in a rush." "All of it happening from 1960 to 1965." "On December 4th, 1969  big-wave surfing was hit with what would become known  as the greatest swell of the 20th century." "A massive low-pressure system metastasized  into one colossal storm system  that consumed the North Pacific Ocean basin  resulting in the largest waves ever recorded." "The super-size storm uprooted trees  dislodged boats onto Oahu's Kam Highway  and blew houses right off their foundations." "Oahu's 13-mile stretch of stunning, world-class surf breaks  became a morass of turbulent, six-story storm surf." "At first light, I was sitting at Waimea looking in disbelief at what I was seeing." "It was breaking so big that Waimea was just full of white water." "So I decided to go around Ka'ena Point and look at Makaha because that would be the last spot that would still have some chance of holding up." "Noll set off west to Makaha  the birthplace of modern big-wave surfing  thinking the huge swells slamming into the North Shore  would be tempered  as they wrapped around the island's far western bend." "On the drive west, he stopped briefly at Ka'ena Point to snap this picture  which Surfer Magazine later claimed  was the largest wave ever photographed." "When we got to Makaha, the cops were going around with blare horns on their cars telling people to evacuate the homes on the point." "Makaha was the only big-wave break on Oahu considered ridable  as Noll and a handful of daring surfers attempted the huge swells." "As the morning progressed  the hundred-year swell surging out of the North Pacific  was giving rise to bigger and bigger waves." "Finally, everybody was out of the water." "I was the only one left." "And I was having a real hard time trying to gear myself for this thing." "Because I knew that basically it was a situation where your chances of surviving one of these waves was about fifty-fifty." "And I'm thinking to myself:" ""Is it worth giving up the farm for a stupid wave?"" "I finally had to just paddle outside the lineup a hundred yards and sit on my board with my head down and kind of go into another gear." "And the final decision was that I would never have forgiven myself if I had allowed this day to go by without at least trying for a wave." "Noll turned and paddled  for what was then considered the biggest wave ever attempted." "No photographers were on hand to capture his wave." "Not a single shot or a single frame of footage exists." "All that remains are the memories of the handful of surfers  who were there that day to witness his momentous ride." "Greg Noll starts to paddle, and we're all in our cars just going:" ""Oh, my God, look at this."" "He's starting to paddle into this thing." "It's this huge, black, massive wall." "We watch him." "He takes off, stands up." "He's this little speck, and you're going, "Oh, my God."" "And he drops in, and he looks like a little tiny cartoon figure." "He gets that Greg Noll stance where he gets into this thing and goes, "I'm going."" "Drops down, drops down and gets to the bottom." "The whole thing's already starting to come over on top of him." "And he just kind of, like, stepped off the rail." "There was nowhere to go." "That was it." "The fact that he made the drop, got to the bottom of the wave..." "It was, like, oblivion after that." "The whole thing just:" "Along with the birth of my sons and my daughter it was probably the most significant day of my life." "Even though it wasn't photographed and people have argued since then:" ""How big was it?" It doesn't matter." "In our imaginations, it just was huge." "Because on that classic day of the biggest swell ever seen he essentially rode alone and faced it when it came to him." "That's what every surfer does in their own life." "Everyone can relate to that." "As Greg Noll's giant wave broke and vanished  so too did the popularity of traditional big-wave surfing  at Waimea Bay." "As it was broadsided by the late '60s shortboard revolution  where the longer, heavier big guns  were phased out in favor of shorter and more maneuverable surfboards." "By the early '70s  the great Waimea had been usurped by two spectacular  more performance-oriented North Shore breaks:" "The Bonzai Pipeline, led by surfers like Gerry Lopez  and at Sunset Beach  by surfers like Jeff Hackman and Barry Kanaiaupuni." "All this changed in the mid-'80s  first with the emergence of Ken Bradshaw  and then Mark Foo." "Two professional big-wave riders  determined to reintroduce personality and showmanship  to the challenge of riding giant Waimea." "Then came The Eddie  Quiksilver's big-wave riding contest at Waimea Bay  held in memory of the late, great big-wave rider Eddie Aikau." "Together, Ken Bradshaw, Mark Foo and The Eddie  wrenched the surfing world's attention back to Waimea Bay  then still considered the Mount Everest of big-wave surfing." "Mavericks wasn't supposed to exist, it wasn't supposed to be there." "It was a mystery that it was just suddenly found in this area that's 20-something miles away from San Francisco." "In Half Moon Bay, who's formerly famous for its annual pumpkin festival." "It's as if they discovered Mount Everest behind Mount Whitney." "Teenage surfer Jeff Clark grew up  along Half Moon Bay's secluded coast  riding homemade boards in the region's powerful, rugged waves  where he carved out a frontier existence  far removed from surfing's mainstream." "I was a freshman in high school." "You could see this place exploding from out behind the building where we'd all congregate." "I was with my childhood friend, and I'd go:" ""Brian, we've gotta go check that out."" "We'd sit up on a cliff and watch this place go, and one day it was like:" ""Brian, today's the day."" "I go, "Bring your board." He's like:" ""There's no way I'm paddling a half a mile offshore to a place I've never been."" "And so he sat here at the end of the cliff and said:" ""I'll call the Coast Guard, tell them where I last saw you."" "The year was 1975, and the wave Clark intended to ride  broke a half a mile offshore into a veritable graveyard of jagged rocks." "The wave was considered more a navigational hazard than a surf spot." "I just remember a wave jacking up, I'm in the vein, and total commitment." "If I eat it, I eat it." "But I'm going." "And I hit my feet and I've never felt water pass across the bottom of a surfboard so fast." "The fastest I've ever gone, and I made it." "And I just thought, "Man, I want another one of those."" "Jeff went out there for the first time and rode it by himself and couldn't get anyone to go back out with him." "There just weren't any takers around here." "People just didn't believe me." "They just thought, "He's out of his mind." "He doesn't know what he's talking about."" "I said, "It's the best big wave you'll ever surf."" "Jeff Clark was sitting out there, nobody in the bleachers no helicopters flying over, no cheering crowds doing his shit by himself." "He'd be like the equivalent of a mountain man killing a grizzly in the Rockies, doing a three-day battle sleeping inside the carcass, and not having anyone to tell about it." "My parents had no idea I was riding waves like this." "I believed in my ability to go out there and ride it." "It was my sanctuary." "I could leave the shore and go out there and be so focused and so in tune and feel the ocean with every fiber in my body and I was part of it." "Jeff Clark's greatest challenge was how he internalized all that emotion and all that drama and all that adrenaline surfing that place alone year after year after year." "Jeff Clark surfed Mavericks alone for 15 years." "Until finally, in 1990, he was able to convince two Santa Cruz surfers  Dave Schmidt and Tom Powers, to join him." "They went back to Santa Cruz with these tales of these waves." "And the next time it broke, there were photographers there were 10 guys." "Suddenly it's like, "Wait a minute." "California is a big-wave place."" "The discovery of this monstrous wave in Northern California  produced an entirely new breed of big-wave surfer." "Once Mavericks came, it was in our backyard." "It really took time to figure out what we had." "It wasn't instantaneous, even though it was gnarly." "It took time for me to conceptualize." "It was taboo for us to say "20 feet."" "It was like, "20-foot waves only happen in Hawaii."" "The thought was, "It can't be as big and as gnarly as Waimea." "This can't be as hard as what they're doing there" when in fact it was way harder, it was way more fearsome and it was way gnarlier." "It's just so gnarly and rocky and just violent and just hateful, it's hateful." "I jumped in." "I had the worst ice-cream headache." "Within 30 seconds, I couldn't feel my hands or feet." "How are you supposed to ride 30- to 40- to 50-foot faces?" "I'm out of here." "You got sharks, you got rocks, you got cold water, you got huge surf." "Five-millimeter wet suits, fog banks, you can't see two feet in front of you." "Oversized boulders from the Land of the Lost." "They extend across the length of where the wave is breaking." "To reach the waves at Mavericks  surfers paddle over 45 minutes  through a maze of rocks, rip currents  and frigid open-ocean chop until they finally reach the lineup." "The sacred thing in big-wave surfing is:" "What are the lineups?" "Lineups are a means of triangulating your position in the ocean." "So you find two reference points on land at about 90 degrees." "Mainly what I use is this positioning on hillsides." "I mean, there's a big mountain behind and a closer cliff." "There's a satellite dish you can line up." "Line them up so you know within a few feet where you are in reference to the reef and the coastline." "Just looking at waves, you don't know the right spot." "It's very important to be in the right spot at Mavericks." "If you're too deep, you won't make it." "You're not just waiting for a wave." "You're constantly paddling, trying to maintain your position." "The worst thing that can happen out at Mavericks is getting caught inside." "There's sets that come that are on a regular basis and people get used to that, sitting where those are coming." "Then a sneak set will come out of the blue." "It's literally just like in those beach-blanket movies." "There's nothing happening, you're sitting." "Sometimes, corny though it may sound someone actually yells, "Outside!"" "And you turn and you go, "Oh, my!"" "Your adrenaline's running, everything is full rpm." "And you just wanna stroke as hard as you can." "Heart in your throat, paddling as if catching a wave only you're trying to get out." " It's just a total survival thing." "Nobody cares about the other guy at that point you just wanna get over it." "Each successive wave will be bigger than the one before." "You pray the one you barely made it over is gonna get you to the next one." "The next one's twice as big as the wave you just saw." " It's gonna land right on you." " Then the sinking feeling." ""I'm caught, I'm caught, and I'm not gonna get away."" "Oh, that guy's in the impact zone." "There's a point where it gets so critical you have to either commit, and you'll make it out the back or you slide off your board and swim into a vertical face of water." "You feel like, "Oh, I made it." Then you're getting sucked back." "The feeling of going over backwards is horrifying." "It's the worst kind of beating." "Oh, shit." "There's a fiendish pleasure, though of watching, one by one, the people you started with..." "They get picked off, don't quite punch through right and they're goners." "Not only is the takeoff the hardest part of big-wave surfing it's the most fun." "It's entirely different than any kind of normal surf because it's basically one burst of energy." "The wave comes out of deep water but it just stops, and that whole mass of that wave jacks up." "The bottom of the wave becomes the top in half a second." "It rears up and pulls back and sucks up and you really have to find your niche where you can be under that." "You thought you were paddling into something maybe 20 or 30 feet." "Now you're riding something 35 to 40 feet tall." "You gotta put everything you have into getting yourself as far down the face before it picks you up." "You have to jump off the cliff right when the thing's about to jump on you." "If you make haste in a takeoff your odds of you making that wave are very low." "The whole aspect is really more mental than physical." "You have to believe." "I know when I'm gonna make a wave or I'm not before I even paddle for it." "I have to overcome that safety mechanism that wants to rise up and to keep me from doing something that could kill me." "So this fear of the unknown becomes, like, something you have to confront." "Because there is no way to turn back your decision." "Because there is no way to turn back your decision." "I've just wiped out." "I'm getting just worked." "Fluttering down the face, getting sucked back over the face." "Then you basically become the lip." "Back flips, front flips, McTwists, every which way underwater real fast over, like, a football field." "You don't know which direction is up or down or right or left." "It's black." "It's dark." "I can feel the pressure in my ears." "You're sure you're near the surface then what you have perceived to be up is actually the bottom." "And the leash is pulling hard on you, the board is tombstoning up there." "And I realize that if there was another wave that was coming I'm finished." "At one point, it started to stop, and I thought, "Okay I'm gonna live," you know." " I started to swim up..." " And the next wave hit." "Then it started all over again, every bit as bad as the first part of it." "I remember feeling underwater, like going over a waterfall underwater." "Literally getting sucked into a hole." "Here I am 30 feet down, and now it takes me another 15, 20 feet down." "And I slam into the bottom down there." "And you think:" ""Oh, my God." "I'm deeper than anyone's ever been."" "You get to a point when you're down there, like:" ""Okay, this is not happening anymore."" "You know, you gotta get to the surface to get air." "Finally, when I come up to the surface, I remember it being so bright." "It was like being in a dream and all of a sudden:" "Back to, "Okay, this is real." "This is live now."" "Almost every traumatic thing that can happen to you at Mavericks is due to the leash." "Leashes are a dangerous thing in any surf spot over 20 feet." "There's those few critical situations where leashes are a hindrance." "After the first wave, Flea found himself on the wrong end of his leash." "When entangled in a crevice  the urethane cord held him in place  while he was repeatedly battered by incoming white water." "The leash wrapped around rocks." "I was stuck for eight waves." " How come you couldn't get it off?" " The water current was so strong it's like doing a sit-up with 200 pounds on your chest." "Flea eventually worked himself loose." "But in a more dramatic incident  Jeff Clark was hurled into Mavericks' rocky Boneyard  and was trapped when his leash became hooked onto Sail Rock." "I can't get the leash off my ankle." "The broken half of my board is dragging me into the rocks." "Finally, I'm getting swirled around, I got my hands out, and I feel the rock." "I'm hanging onto the side of this rock." "I'm underwater and the water starts to drain, and I am high and dry." "Next thing you know, another wave came over the rock." "I'm underwater again." "The tension from my leg rope relieved." "I climbed on the rock, and I got rid of that damn anchor that was around my leg." "It's funny that Mavericks surfers value their surfboards more than their lives." "It's like a lifeline." "If you get held down, the only thing that I know is at the end of this is something that floats more than I do." "So if I wait and hold onto it, that's up." "So I reach around and grab my leash and climb it back to the top, back to the surface." "I know, in my experience, there were times when if I didn't have a leash, I'm not sure I would have lived." "In May of 1992  two years after Clark shared his spot with Powers and Schmidt Surfer Magazine took Mavericks public  with a cover story titled "Cold Sweat."" "As if to back up the front-page headline  in 1994, California was bombarded by a series of epic north swells  announcing to surfing's big-wave fraternity Mavericks was the real deal." "That's when the entire, you know, surf world converged on Mavericks, like, "Okay, this place is legitimate." "We're gonna really see what it's worth here."" "On December 23rd, the sudden arrival of three of Hawaii's  most famous Waimea Bay surfers  Ken Bradshaw, Brock Little and Mark Foo  created the biggest stir and gave the impression  that something momentous was taking place." "That day was amazing to have the Hawaiians paddling out:" "Brock Little, Mark Foo, Ken Bradshaw." "My gosh, I was like a proud parent or something like that, you know because they gave the spot that I've surfed for so many years the credibility to actually come and surf it." "Helicopters were hovering, and photographers from all the mags were there, and it was just crazy." "We knew it was the day." "This was one of the best days of surfing I've ever had out there." "Then at approximately 11:20 a.m., during a beautiful medium-sized set  Mark Foo paddled, hopped to his feet  and dropped into his second wave of the day." "I went to lunch." "I came back out to the point." "I saw Brock in the parking lot, and there was this guy, Greg, eerily:" ""Have you seen Mark Foo?"" "And that was just..." "We were headed back in the boat toward the harbor, and I saw some..." "It kind of looked just like a big clump of something as we were, you know, passing it." "And I pointed it out and said:" ""Hey, that looks like a body," you know." "And, you know, sure enough, we stopped the boat and just realized that it was, you know, Mark Foo." "I dove off and grabbed him and just rushed to the harbor." "It was a..." "It was a really eerie, eerie, you know, experience and just so chilling." "It went from the most pleasant, beautiful, plate-glass sunshiny day to the clouds moved in, it got dark the wind came up and it was just, you know like we lost a great warrior." "One of our surfers, one of our own, was gone." "To have that winter when Mark Foo passed away, that was..." "That was a heavy hit to everybody." "That was a heavy hit to everybody." "What added to the shock of Foo's death were its circumstances." "An innocuous wipeout on a less-than-death-defying wave  in the middle of a crowded lineup." "I think he fell on his stomach, knocked the wind out of himself and was fatigued from the flight the night before, you know." "I think he got caught on the bottom." "The reason I think his leg rope got caught in the rocks is that on the next wave Brock Little and Mike Parsons wipe out." "Parsons comes up, and Brock was behind him." "In later interviews, Parsons said:" ""I felt Brock trying to get to the surface."" "But what he didn't realize at the time Brock was up and, you know it was Foo trying to get to the surface." "Which kind of..." "It kind of confirms that he was being held down by something." "I went and examined his body, actually." "There really wasn't any discernible injury." "He had a slight scratch on his forehead." "His countenance, actually was not that of one who had sort of struggled or who had been in anguish." "I felt, surfing at Mavericks the years prior to that that someone would die." "I didn't think it would be Mark Foo but somebody who didn't know what they were in for." "Mark Foo was this guy who was larger than life to us, you know." "A guy more invincible than any of us, with more experience than any of us." "He's the guy that said, "To catch the ultimate thrill you gotta be willing to pay the ultimate price."" "Everyone wanted to understand what killed him." "That was important." "Because they were trying to assess the risk in the face of their sudden mortality." "As it sunk in, I didn't think that could happen." " I didn't think that could happen." " I thought I was invincible." "You know, I didn't think..." "I thought I could huck myself over any ledge and pop back up laughing, you know." "And I think a lot of big-wave riders have that belief." "When it comes down to it, it's up to me whether I live or die." "It's up to me whether I go on a wave or not." "While an extravagant funeral was planned for Foo in Hawaii  surfers from up and down the California coast  gathered at Mavericks for a quiet tribute to their fallen comrade." "It turned the clocks back to 10 years before when I'm sitting out there at the peak, by myself with my own thoughts." "I wasn't sure I wanted to surf Mavericks." "So when I went back out there, I wasn't sure if I'd be spooked or not." "I ended up..." "You know, the wave came to me and it was like, "Yes."" "Mavericks said, "You wanna be here, here's your wave."" "I caught a great one, everything was good." "It's the way I thought it was." "But I always knew it could kill me." "That it can kill anyone." "A year to the day after Foo's death, during a memorial tribute session  held in Foo's honor at Waimea Bay  California surfer Donny Solomon was caught by a close-out set  and drowned." "Then in February of 1997  well-known big-wave rider Todd Chesser  perished in 30-foot surf at a remote North Shore outer-reef break." "In 1968, in the thick of that era's shortboard revolution  a fatherless 4-year-old boy named Laird Zerfas  accompanied his mother, Joann, on a chance visit  to Hawaii's North Shore." "He couldn't have known at the time, but he'd grow up to become  the greatest big-wave rider of his generation." "Perhaps the greatest the world has ever known." "After my dad left my mom, before I could even remember I was in search for a masculine figure in my life." "And my mom needed a husband, but I needed a dad." "My friend Greg MacGillivray who is, like, the father of the IMAX films he was making a surfing movie at the time." "I was helping him make movies." "So I was walking down the beach to see him." "Here's this little kid playing around the ocean, so I dove in." "I said, "What's your name?" "My name's Laird."" "I said, "What are you doing?" He said, "Bodysurfing." "You wanna bodysurf?"" "I said, "Sure."" "I said, "Why don't you hang onto my neck, we'll bodysurf."" "It was love at first sight with him and I." "We had this physical connection instantly." "It was a physical, spiritual, mental..." "It was, like, "I love this child" thing." "It was just, "I love this child."" "And we were just, like, partners." "When we finished, he grabbed my hand, he says:" ""I want you to come up and meet my mom."" "I don't know if he had a choice." ""You're coming with me."" "And there was his mother, beautiful brown-haired, brown-eyed gal." "I went, "Oh, my God."" "Mom was like, "Who's this?" "This is Bill."" "You know, give him the nudge, you know." "Shortly thereafter, Billy Hamilton, who was known  as one of the sport's most popular and stylish surfers  married Joann, becoming Laird's adopted father  and giving him his name." "I was known for being the kid that ran around and said:" ""My dad's Bill Hamilton." "Know who he is?"" "These guys are like..." "Guys like Gerry Lopez." ""I know who your dad is." "I see him every day."" ""No, but do you know now it's my dad?"" "Like, you know, they knew who he was but I wanted them to know he was connected to me." "This is my dad." "Because if you don't, you might get a soda can full of sand in the side of your head or..." "The young Hamilton family set about making a life in Hawaii  where, despite the paradisiacal island setting  the initial years took on a rough edge." "Being a blond Caucasian I kind of represented the stereotypical person that destroyed the culture of Hawaii." "A lot of people hated me, wanted to fight because of my skin color." "The way he learned to fight, because he was so big and powerful was he'd slap an opponent so hard it would shock and embarrass them." "It wouldn't injure them, but it would hurt so bad mentally and physically that he won the fight right at that minute." "The reputation was, "Don't f*** around with Laird."" " So he looked after you as well?" " Of course, I was his brother." "He took care of me." "I mean, he was the only one giving me beatings." "Let's put it that way." "It was a privilege deal." "He wanted to be Hawaiian." "He used to dream of wishing that he had brown skin, to be Hawaiian." "Because for him, that was what was sort of beautiful and strong." "That's what was around him." "Couldn't get girlfriends, didn't have a lot of friends." "What did he do?" "He spent and put all that energy into the water." "In the face of this youthful alienation  Laird precociously turned to an older generation  for inspiration and camaraderie." "Laird Hamilton was around the legendary big-wave riders of the '60s who were moving into the '70s, his dad being one of them." "During that time period, Pipeline Beach was the mecca of surfing and anybody who was anybody in surfing came and surfed Pipeline." "So I got to see all the guys." "His dad was making boards for Peter Cole, Warren Harlow Jose Angel, the pioneers of big-wave surfing." "And Laird was just this little sponge soaking all this stuff up." "I aspired to be like these pioneers of big-wave riding." "They were going out on days when people were evacuating." "Considering his pedigree, a traditional pro surfing career  was Laird's for the taking." "But from a young age, his imagination was captured  by the mythic canvas of riding giant waves." "I was young and impressionable in 1969." "So I understood the volume of what was possible." "I understood there was stuff out there that hadn't been tapped and that the ocean was capable of producing places and things that no one had really done." "What Laird and the other big-wave riders  from as far back as the '50s knew  is that lying far beyond the traditional breaks like Waimea  were another set of remote offshore reefs capable of producing waves of unimaginable size." "Even before 1969  the amazing third-reef Pipeline broke once in 1963 as a result of a freak storm that awoke the sleeping giant." "It took Greg Noll and Mike Stang two hours to make the long paddle out." "They waited another two hours, until Greg finally caught  one of the most epic rides in North Shore history." "Another ambitious attempt occurred 30 years later, in 1993  when North Shore surfer Alec Cook  armed with an 11-foot board  an emergency scuba tank and a helicopter had himself dropped in the path of a six-story swell off Oahu's Ka'ena Point." "He made a valiant effort, actually making the drop  on one massive wall, before being swallowed." "Episodes like this made it clear that when it came to riding  giant outer-reef waves  traditional paddle-in surfing had its limits." "Any time they talked about the limitations of big-wave riding it wasn't riding the wave, it was catching the wave." "Because as waves increase in size they also increase in speed." "So the bigger the wave, the faster it's moving the faster you need to be going to catch it." "Having already established himself as a dominant force  in traditional Hawaiian breaks, Laird Hamilton continued to explore  the boundaries of extreme ocean sports developing into a world-class windsurfer." "Powered by the wind, Laird and his fellow sailboarders  discovered the speed and mobility necessary to access the outer reefs  and sail into waves previously impossible to catch by hand." "But you had this sail." "You weren't surfing, you were windsurfing." "And it was so restrictive that you lost the freedom that surfing had." "I had just done a GQ shoot with Laird." "We both liked surfing." "So we started hanging out." "Buzzy and I had been playing around in the Zodiac all summer doing flat-water freeboarding." "We were freeboarding in the summer, and there was a swell." "We were using swells for ramps, and then we started taking speed, catching waves, and the light went off and we were like:" ""Oh, wow, we can catch waves." "We might be able to ride bigger waves."" "In December of 1992, Laird Hamilton, along with pro-surfer Buzzy Kerbox  and legendary North Shore lifeguard  and Waimea Bay rider Darrick Doerner launched the surf at Sunset Beach  in a 16-foot inflatable Zodiac." "Neither of the three could've imagined that by the time they got back  big-wave surfing would be changed forever." "They weren't riding waves that were significantly bigger than guys had ridden." "It was how they were surfing the wave." "This radical new approach of being whipped into a wave  came to be called "tow-in surfing."" "You get the slingshot from the tow rope, you let go and there you are, on this beautiful wave with no one anywhere near you on this big, giant board, there's no crowd there." "Bingo." "Progress came quick, as the trio swapped the clumsy inflatable  for the faster and more agile Jet Ski." "With the Jet Ski, you can catch waves and not even get your hair wet." "Back in 1987, North Shore veteran Herbie Fletcher  who for years had been exploring the outer reefs on a Jet Ski  towed pro-surfer Martin Potter into a wave at second-reef Pipeline." "An innovative idea that, surprisingly, failed to inspire others until five years later, when Hamilton, Kerbox and Doerner  revealed tow-in surfing's true potential." "In traditional big-wave surfing, the boards were very large." "And the reason for the size of the boards was to catch the wave." "Once you were in, you didn't need a big board, you were fine." "We didn't visualize what actually was gonna take place until we went snowboarding." "And if we could ride these giant mountains on this tiny little board well, why couldn't we do that surfing?" "Aided by renowned board-builders Dick Brewer, Billy Hamilton  and Gerry Lopez the trio chopped their boards by three feet." "Then, drawing inspiration from windsurfing and snowboarding  they strapped themselves to their boards  providing control in the heightened speed and turbulence  of riding waves over 30 feet." "The small board was really the big breakthrough." "I think that's really where we shifted gears." "All of a sudden, now we really had the speed." "The liberation of paddling by motor  suddenly opened up big-wave surfing's next frontier." "Now it seemed that riding any wave breaking anywhere, at any size, was possible." "Then came the idea of this thing on Maui where Gerry sat down with Laird and said:" ""I got something you might wanna see."" "When he understood what we had going he was like: "Hey," you know, "young man, come over here." "I got something to show you."" "We knew that we had discovered the real un-ridden realm." "Located on Maui's remote North Coast  and requiring a long, dangerous approach by sea, is Peahi  also known as Jaws." "Peahi revealed itself as the big wave of the future." "And within its awesome size and power  tow-in surfing came of age." "The difference between this wave and Waimea is this is about five Waimeas." "You take Makaha, Waimea, Sunset, Pipeline, Ka'ena Point, Mavericks put them together in a pot, that's what you get." "Like Waimea and Mavericks  Peahi featured its own crew of groundbreaking pioneers." "In addition to Hamilton, Doerner and Kerbox were windsurfing champion Dave Kalama  then Mike Waltze, Pete Cabrinha, Mark Angulo  Rush Randle and Brett Lickle." "Known as "The Strap Crew"  these boys rewrote the rules of big-wave surfing by riding waves  in a manner that was once the realm of sheer fantasy." "Things that, previously, they only dreamed of doing." "Things we only saw in animation, suddenly, surfers were doing." "Now you're riding waves with greater speed than you ever dreamed of." "I mean, it's like a dream." "It's just like, "Oh, my God." "I'm on the perfect wave, I'm going 35 miles an hour."" "It's so fun that it's just..." "I..." "I better shut up." "Coming up on the Ski and seeing plumes of water 100 feet in the air." "You can hear the drone of the Skis in the distance." "You have these things in your head, like, "What's going on?" "What waves are guys riding?" "What have people done?" "How bad were wipeouts?" "Is anyone dead yet?"" "The first time that I surfed at Peahi I remember getting so uptight on the way out just going, "Oh, man," you know, so much anxiety that I was thinking:" ""Jesus, I'm just..." "I'm not gonna be able to surf."" "And I remember finally having to go, "Okay." "Shit." "I guess this is a good day to die."" "Challenging waves in the 50- and 60-foot range  obliterated the concept of surfing as a solitary pursuit  and rewired the rules of engagement." "You gotta have eyes in the back of your head." "I got eyes, Dave and Darrick." "They see what I need to see." "I'll just kind of balance right on the crest of the shoulder so I can see what Laird's doing and what's behind us." "It's a three-man operation." "Laird and Kalama will be paired up." "I'll be in the channel for safety." "Performing as a team is the key to survival in 50-foot-plus waves  where every wipeout becomes life-threatening." "When things go wrong, they go wrong real quick." "You're getting brutalized so severely, you don't know when it's gonna end." "You're an insignificant little rag doll trying to keep your limbs in so that nothing gets ripped off." "Anybody who looks at that shit goes:" ""How can that guy live through that?"" "The greatest threat is getting trapped  in the impact zone and held underwater  as successive 10-story waves explode overhead." "Out of sheer necessity of survival  tow-in surfing introduced the big-wave rescue  with the Ski driver ready and willing to put himself in harm's way  to come to the aid of his fallen partner." "I'm thinking about the next wave that's gonna hit him." "And how much time I have from where I am to get to him get him on the Ski and get out of there." "Sometimes you're not able to get him immediately." "He might have to take two or three on the head." "You've gotta dash in there, and hopefully the timing is right that the guy's gonna pop up just as you're coming by, and you get him." "Otherwise, you gotta get out, and the guy's gotta take another on the head." "Because, you know, if you lose a Ski, then both of you are screwed." "You can rush into a situation where a person is drowning." "Now there's two persons drowning." "On a rescue situation where you're really in peril, and it's a real situation there's that connection." "You can see it in the eyes, where, "We need to do this." "And we need to do it right now." "Nothing else matters."" "But as soon as that moment passes, it's pure love." "It is pure love: "Thank you, buddy." "I love you." "Thank you for getting me out of here."" "If one of those guys go down, I will put myself on the line every time." "And each of those guys, they'll put themselves on the line for guys they don't even know, or might not like." "But it's part of their personality, it's part of their nature." "So when they go home at night they sleep well because they don't think, "I could have, why didn't I?"" "They do it." "When you're underwater, you know:" ""Okay, I'm here by myself right now, underwater." "But I know there's somebody up there doing everything they can to help me."" "Even if he can't help you, the confidence that's instilled by believing in that person buys you time." "It gives you confidence to just make it to the surface." "It really makes survival a whole different story than if you're out there on your own, swimming around in the water with no one but yourself." "The experiences that you have there, the friendships that are formed going through those experiences are ones that are very deep because there's times where you call upon or you experience the most..." "Deepest sense of who you are." "There's something about riding a 60- to 80-foot-face wave that draws something out of you." "The wave commands so much focus, so much attention." "It's the only thing that matters for a few seconds, and it's very purifying because as far as you're concerned, nothing else exists." "You're not doing this for your own glory." "You're caught up in this great act of nature." "Ironically, the biggest challenge  facing these professional big-wave riders is not the wave itself." "You can't just go get it on Sunday at 12:00 like you can most anything else." "When the ocean is not making the waves available Laird suffers, like a lot of the other guys do." "Oh, I get so depressed, it's like:" "We get frustrated, depressed and bitchy and grouchy and..." "You know." "You really don't wanna be around us like that." "Laird was trying to explain what it was like when there was no waves." "And he said, you know, "It would sort of be like if you were a dragon slayer, and there were no dragons." "Then you wonder, like, who am I and what am I doing here?"" "And I question that all year long except when it's 30 feet and I'm out surfing." "Laird's the king out there." "I mean, he was the one that, like Greg at Waimea you know, dragged the guys out there." "You just watch him surf, and there's no one that comes close to his abilities." "He has the ability to actually slow himself down where everybody else just wants to run like hell." "The reason why I'm able to ride waves the way I do is because I have partners like Dave and Darrick." "I'm only arriving at this level because I'm being driven by these guys to this level." "There's no question this guy is the best big-wave rider the world has seen." "In August of 2000  Hamilton took another giant leap by riding a wave so treacherous  and so outrageous  that it affected the course of big-wave surfing history." "The wave broke 3000 miles south of Maui  on the French Polynesian island of Tahiti  at a reef pass known simply as Teahupoo." "Who ever thought that a wave could suck so much water off the reef?" "That a wave could be so powerful and cylindrical?" "The wave Laird encountered at Teahupoo is a freak of hydrodynamics." "Unlike the deep-water big-wave breaks of Waimea  Mavericks and Peahi  Teahupoo explodes laterally  onto an extremely shallow, razor-sharp reef." "The result is an extraordinary wave  that, while not as high as Peahi  is almost unfathomable in its mass, power and ferocity." "Teahupoo's reputation was fearsome, but neither Laird nor Doerner could've imagined the once-in-a-lifetime wave  that eventually appeared on the horizon." "I towed him onto this wave." "It was to the point where I almost said:" ""Don't let go of the rope."" "When I looked back, he was gone." "I think it's the single heaviest thing I've ever seen in surfing." "What could be heavier?" "Laird's wave at Teahupoo was the most amazing, single most significant ride in surfing history." "More than any other ride." "Because what it did is it completely restructured, collectively our entire perception of what was possible." "Go through a surf magazine, you've seen Pipeline, Off the Wall, Waimea." "You've seen everything, and none of it has any impact." "But when that photo came out it stopped everyone's heart, and they went:" ""Where and what is that?"" "I remember picking up that magazine, and looking and just going:" ""Man, that shit's impossible." "You don't do that."" "In my absolute prime, there's absolutely no way I could ride a wave like that." "Normally, surfers are dragging this hand along the face." "Laird had to drag his right, his back hand on the opposite side of his board to keep himself from getting sucked up in that hydraulic." "You know, in the middle of that maelstrom how did his mind say, "This is what I have to do."" "No one had ever ridden as Laird rode on that wave before." "And so it was the imagination of dealing with that unimaginable energy and coming up with the plan spontaneously." "He couldn't practice." "I asked Laird, I said, "Laird, why do you ride waves like this?" "Why do you risk your life riding waves like this?" He looked at me..." "This is a week after he did this, and he was drained from the experience." "He was very mellow and very..." "I think he was humbled by the experience, and he goes:" ""Dad, I've trained my whole life for this." "I don't wanna miss an opportunity like that."" "I don't wanna not live because of my fear of what could happen." "It softened some hard corners in my life, I would say." "And I felt honored to be awarded with something so magnificent that it just made me appreciate what I've been able to have, experience, do." "One of the things I love about my work as a physician and I work with cancer patients, people with life-threatening illnesses is to see what often takes place, which is, literally, transformation." "Where they just begin to, sort of, eliminate the bullshit and they begin to actually live, truly live, almost for the first time." "And those kind of life-changing events can come from illness they can come from revelation they can actually come from, for me, anyway, big-wave surfing." "That's the thing about it, it's that ultimate big wave that you ride that you remember for the rest of your life." "They're engrained in your brain, just like your child being born." "I haven't missed a swell in 55 years." "I'm still as excited about surfing as I've ever been." "I literally run to the water with my board, hooting, laughing and giggling." "Centuries ago, a young Hawaiian stood up on his surfboard  and slid gently across the face of a breaking wave." "That same wave has rolled through time  crossing many oceans, bearing the giants of surfing  from King Kamehameha to Duke Kahanamoku  from George Downing to Greg Noll  from Jeff Clark to Laird Hamilton  sweeping them all toward that most supreme pleasure  driven on so fast and smoothly by the sea." "Scene one, take one." "Here we go." "When I was in school, I was flunking French." "Then my French teacher said, "What are you gonna do when you graduate school?" "You have to pass this." "What are you gonna do, go to college?"" "I says, "No, I'm gonna go surfing, to the North Shore." "I'm gonna make my pilgrimage to the North Shore." "And if I don't die then I'll figure out what I do." "This is a noble thing I'm doing." "I'm going there to ride big waves, to find out who I am."" "The big waves are more fascinating to me than all the other natural wonders in the world." "And I wanna see the biggest swells every year." "Is this a natural wonder as much as, say, the Grand Canyon is?" "To me, I mean, the Grand Canyon pales compared to, like, Mavericks." "The Grand Canyon is just this sort of erosion gully." "People accuse us of having ego, but it's not all about ego." "It's too thrilling to be an egocentric thing." "Sam George, reel one." "If you applied the same amount of devotion to a religious pursuit do you think anyone would call you a religious bum?" "Probably not." "When you consider that surfing really is, more than anything else, a faith and devotion to that faith becomes paramount in your life there's no such thing as a surf bum." "At Teahupoo, I had the little voice going:" ""Jump off right now." "You're not gonna make this wave."" "And another side of me going:" ""Well, I can't make it unless I just stay on."" "What is it inside him that lets him do that?" "It was the third testicle we had added at birth." "Cut." "Roll them." "Action." "The main thing is, you need to be able to get rid of the leash if you get wrapped up on the bottom or on somebody else." "So we've dealt with it, with having a quick-release." "Before 1994, it wasn't really widely used." "After Mark Foo, everybody out there has adapted to this and we all use leashes, and we all have a quick-release." "Even today, when I go over there, to Waimea you know, it just blows me away." "It's like here she is, the same beautiful woman only now, she's snuggling up to the next generation and the next generation." "But I..." "Last time I went, I swear to God I looked out, man, and I could..." "I think she winked at me." "You know, when one of them big sets came and the sun was dancing off the face of that wave, and the wind was blowing the top up, some guy was streaking, she went:" ""Hey, Greg Noll." "I remember you."" "It makes me almost goddamn cry and I'm not a very emotional guy, you know."