Laird Hamilton

Big Wave Surfing

There are many extreme sports, many sports that get your adrenaline  pumping. Sport where you push yourself over the edge of what you think is safe. But a lot of times this edge is only in your head. Its the limit of your comfort zone, its the fear of what can happen, it’s the uneasy feeling you get when you are not in total control of the situation. But for me the limit might be here for you it might be there. This is not the case with big wave surfing. There are not many sports where the danger is so obvious and present. Hell, you are riding the danger itself, you are in the direct contact with it. And if that is not enough – the danger is moving and it is trying to catch you. It all looks kind of like extreme freeride snowboarding during an earthquake. And the man of big wave surfing, the big wave surfing man is “the man with no neck” Laird Hamilton. There is a nice clip of Laird Hamiltons surfing that follows but first a few word about him.

Laird Hamilton

Laird Hamilton was born in San Francisco in 1964. His name back then was actually – Laird John Zerfas. When he was still a kid, his dad died and he moved to Hawaii together with his mother. This is where he met legendary surfer Bill Hamilton. Bill married Lairds mother and he became his surfing teacher. The best surfing teacher in the best place on Earth for surfing. No wonder Laird came out the way he did.

There are not a low of surfing related things that Laird Hamilton did not have his fingers mixed in. Strap-in surfing? Kite surfing? Aerials? Big wave surfing? Tow in surfing? Hydrofoil surfing? Stand up paddle surfing (at least he dusted it off)? Even mountainboarding? You name it!

But what really kicked Laird Hamilton into the stardom was his “oh my god…” on the cover of Surfer magazine wave at the break Teahupoo (Tahiti). This wave redefined tow in surfing and redefined what is possible on a wave. The lip on that wave is so thick it looks like half of the ocean stumbled over the coral reef on Tahiti. You can see some great pictures of that wave and that ride from Tim Mackenna – Teahupoo.

Laird Hamilton Surfing Teahupoo and Jaws

This clip shows Laird Hamilton surfing two biggest or gnarliest waves in the World. The monster in Tahiti – ‘Teahupoo’, which in Tahitian means, “End of the Road” and the beast at his home – in Maui, named “Peahi” or more known “Jaws”. Enjoy.