Ghost Wave - Chris Dixon [131]
If this is the income and living that the best big wave surfers can command, how much of an incentive to others can it be? Those athletes for whom money is most important choose to compete in the small wave-friendly World Tour, or they choose another sport. Unless you’re Laird Hamilton, big wave surfing just isn’t a way to get rich.
Nor are Laird’s and Bill’s the only valid opinions on the matter. Most of the XXL surfers, not surprisingly, chafe at a suggestion that they’re bounty hunters. But it’s the ever-outspoken Sam George who gets at a truth that might, and perhaps will, make both Laird and Bill spitting mad.
“Not everyone can be Laird Hamilton,” says George. “But I’ve seen Bill ride giant waves. He doesn’t have to prove his physical courage to anyone. You know, it’s funny. Bill would come to single-handedly create a new genre of professional big wave riders. It’s something Laird Hamilton might have done, but he didn’t. I’m not saying Laird couldn’t have, but he didn’t. And I’m not denigrating Laird or his contribution to big wave surfing. He has completely changed the sport. But the way Bill would come to revamp big wave riding—and put the focus back on it. He’s almost solely responsible for the fact that Laird Hamilton has a career in big wave surfing. Without Bill Sharp turning the world’s attention back to big wave surfing, Laird Hamilton would still be out riding Jaws. You just wouldn’t have seen him doing it on the cover of National Geographic.”
What Sharp really did to big wave surfing, George says, and what some self-described purists consider an almost unforgivable offense, was to do away with Buzzy Trent’s enduring romantic notion that “big waves are not measured in feet, but in increments of fear.”
George says, “Bill cut away all the bullshit and upped the ante. He said that if you rode it, it should be measured, and you deserved to be recognized. So if you really think about it, those two in the end, they’re both responsible for all this. Laird and Bill. They’re a team. It’s true. If not for Bill, there’s no Laird. If not for Laird, there’s no Bill.”
Chapter 11:
TRIFLING
WITH THE
ALMIGHTY
“What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare?”
—Ahab, from Herman Melvilles Moby-Dick, 1851
Following his sobering wake-up call at the Cortes Bank in January 2004, Sean Collins remained true to his word. He continued to include the Bank in his wave models, but he, and everyone who went out there, basically quit talking about it. The change was stunning.
Greg Long and Grant “Twiggy” Baker stare into the abyss at the Cortes Bank on the Everest expedition, January 5, 2008. The wave ahead of them is easily higher than 80 feet. “As far as the eye could see, it was just a huge square of whitewater,” said Twiggy. “If you lost your guy in there, he was just gone. He would have been lost in that expanse, and you’d never find him. It was just so scary.” Photo: Rob Brown.
It wasn’t like Collins was the only one who knew how to stitch chart data together. Anyone could have made reasonable predictions of the winds and conditions with a little effort. It’s thus