As exciting as the 1980s rediscovery of big-wave surfing was, the whole thing had a slightly retrograde quality. It wasn’t as obvious as longboarding, which wore the sport’s past glory like splashed-on cologne. But plenty of big-wave surfing’s reference points had been established decades earlier: Waimea remained the ultimate break; the point-and-go style ruled; master shaper Dick Brewer, who’d crafted the world’s most expensive boards during the Kennedy era, continued to make the finest big-...
Chapter 8:
The Ride of Your Life
- Is Surfing Hip? /
- Lisa Andersen Surfs Better Than You /
- Killer Cute /
- Kelly Slater is Just Warming Up /
- Rebel for Hire /
- I Believe I Can Fly /
- A Monster in Half Moon Bay /
- Mark Foo's Last Ride /
- Open Throttle /
- Laird Means Lord /
- Tahitian Scream /
- A Webcam for Every Wave /
- Last Call for Print Media /
- Taylor Steele Likes it Rough /
- Searching for the Perfect Phrase /
- Hollywood Tries Again /
- Thirty is the New Twenty /
- Andy Irons' Poetic Fury /
- The Beast and Beyond /
- A Dance with the Past /
- Foam is Dead, Long Live Foam /
- Nature Gets a Makeover /
- Surf in a Box /
- The End of History /
A Monster in Half Moon Bay
Jeff Clark was moody and fearless—the kind of guy Northern California surfers had in mind when they half-complimented someone as “psycho.” For 15 years, beginning in 1975, Clark invited local surfers to paddle out to Maverick's with him, describing the wave as “better than Waimea.” Everybody declined.