Chapter: 7
Long Division
- Return of the Longboard
- Simon Anderson and his Mighty Thruster
- Surf and Destroy
- Terror from Below
- The Unsinkable Tom Carroll
- An Explosion of Talent
- Tom Curren's Mile of Style
- How to Turn a Circus into a Riot
- I Predict Waves in Your Future
- Cult of the Surf Photographer
- Video Killed the Surf Movie
- Waves for Sale
- Surf Boom Redux
- Terminally Hip
- Super-Sizing the World Tour
- Somebody Should Do Something
- Surfers vs Apartheid
- Make Room at the Top, Obrigado!
- The Last Big Wave
- Eddie Aikau's State of Grace
- A Beloved Rival
The Last Big Wave
Waimea Bay, Swell of 1969. Photo: Howard Farrant
Greg Noll. Photo: LeRoy Grannis
Fred Hemmings, Makaha, Dec 2, 1969. Photo: Larry Goddard
Loose board at Makaha, Dec 4, 1969. Photo: Falzon
Waimea hardass Greg Noll wasn't against the new-fangled performance riding in small waves. "But at some point the emphasis begins to change. And what's left is a big, damn, terrorizing wave.”
“Whatever happened to big-wave surfing?” In late 1982, Hawaiian surf journalist Leonard Brady posed this question in SURFER magazine. For several weeks Brady had been watching a few big-wave holdovers take on Waimea Bay, and he couldn’t believe the drama that was on display: the huge, up-thrusting field of play; the raw line of attack; the pursuing avalanche of whitewater; the cleaved difference ...
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