Ghost Wave - Chris Dixon [74]
A big little kid named Laird Hamilton came of age in this palm-shaded gladiator arena. He was sucked out in vicious rips and rescued by his adoptive dad, Bill Hamilton, more times than he can count. Alongside his dad, he was probably one of the youngest kids of his era to surf Pipeline and big Sunset. I once asked him if there was a particular instance—a critical moment early in life—when he realized he was out in far bigger surf than he should have been, and if the moment taught him anything.
With nary a pause, he told a story I’d never heard: “I was thirteen years old, and it was at Hanalei [Hanalei Bay on Kauai]. It was when I went from riding what would be considered normal surfing conditions to what we would classify as big. I wiped out three times in a row. That was before we had good leashes. The first wave I caught, I got nailed. Probably swam a mile. Back out, same thing again. Back out, same thing third time. I remember saying to Bill, ‘Man, I don’t know what’s wrong. I just got worked three times. I was hammered.’ He said to me, ‘Well, now you know, at the worst, what’s going to happen. Now go out and catch one.’
“The next one I made—then the next. That was the decisive moment in my psyche. I could survive a pretty good beating and I didn’t get discouraged. If I had gone in, maybe I wouldn’t have pursued surfing as I have. That was the psychologically defining moment for me. You go out and you have grown men scared—big wave riders scared. You’re thirteen years old and you decide you really like this. That it’s what you’ve really wanted—what you’ve dreamed of.”
Laird became known as a preternaturally talented paddle surfer. Had he ended up a little more lithe and half a foot shorter—the size of a Mike Parsons —he might have become a serious contender for the ASP World Title and its world of smaller wave venues. But Laird developed the kind of height, physique, and ego that put him in the company of men like Greg Noll, while his Nordic good looks made him impossible for the fashion industry to ignore. Big waves and bright lights were his destiny.
In the middle of the tempestuous, El Niño–fueled winter of 1991–92, Hamilton and his friend Buzzy Kerbox, a sailboarding champion, began experimenting with a forty-horsepower inflatable Zodiac boat, a waterski tow rope, and a big wave surfboard at a series of mysto reefs off Oahu’s North Shore that included Outer Log Cabins. Within sight of some of the most insanely packed and dramatic surf spots on Earth, the duo used the tiny boat to tow each other into gigantic, dreamlike waves all by themselves. If they had been paddle surfing at Waimea, they might have caught five or six waves all day. Instead they round-robined continually, riding more big waves that day than they typically would in a year.
Their session went mostly unseen by surfers, who were hustling for waves close to shore. But a lifeguard named Darrick Doerner watched spellbound through a pair of binoculars. These guys were on to something, and he wanted in.
The following winter, Doerner joined Laird and Kerbox on Maui, at a spine of reef off the winding road to Hana that had the uncanny ability to turn northwest swells into perfect monsters. The spot’s Hawaiian name was Peahi, but the surfers decided to call it “Jaws.”
Laird had paddle surfed Jaws at small size a few times and was sufficiently intimidated. He said, “Anyone that’s ever come to Jaws, the one thing they always comment on is, ‘Omigosh, the thing is moving so fast. It’s just moving at a different gear. Other waves are third gear, others are fourth. This one is OD—overdrive.”
Mechanized surfing seemed to hold the most promise. Laird and a small, tight circle soon ventured out in the following configuration: One or two surfers would pilot single stand-up Jet Skis for rescue. Another pair drove the inflatable boat and slingshotted a surfer into the waves from behind. It was frightfully dangerous. The Zodiacs possessed not only sharp propellers but a disquieting tendency to launch