Surfing: The Wave
Written by playerpress.com, Wednesday December 17 2008
If you surf you don’t need to hear more. You know I’m talking about the Mavericks at Half Moon Bay in Nor Cal. The Wave commands respect like few others. You don’t ride the Wave, you survive it.
The Wave is a creation of Mother Nature. Storms in the Pacific cause the waves to swell to gigantic proportions. By winter the Wave is present. You could say it’s Mother Nature at her finest, or at her most monstrous depending on your point of view.
In 2007 unusually calm waters canceled the contest held in January when the Wave is at its peak. This year Mother Nature was more cooperative and the event went as planned with plans already on board for the ’09 edition.
If you are unfamiliar with the Mavericks and the event you may be asking how big is the Wave and is it worth all of the excitement? Well, how about 40 ft. as the Wave height. Is that enough to be worthy of conversation. Fans that come to view the contest often pay to watch from a boat. The promoters warn them that motion sickness is possible because of the crest. How would you like to be standing on a board riding that monster toward the shore? Or, maybe you would rather ride one of the smaller 20 ft. waves? Yes, at Mavericks a 20 ft. ride can be considered the safer alternative.
The discovery of the Mavericks is credited to Jeff Clark in 1968. Up until then the conditions at Half Moon Bay that caused the swells appears to have gone unnoticed. Who knows, maybe it is the result of global warming, but at first its existence was questioned since no one believed big wave surfing could be had in California.
Clark continued to ride the waves and invited more friends to give them a try. While several declined, more surfers took the opportunity to paddle out to one of the biggest waves they could encounter. Eventually Clark decided he needed to arrange a contest to see who could master the Mavericks. Since he had lost the privacy of the spot, arranging a contest was the better alternative. At least that way he could share the spot with people who were of the like mind in terms of conquering the monster.
The contest began in the ‘90’s and almost immediately the Mavericks took its toll. Big wave expert Mark Foo drowned while surfing Half Moon Bay in 1994. This resulted in Clark and his cohorts forming the Mavericks Water Patrol in an attempt to prevent any future tragedies. Truthfully, there is still no guarantee of safety in the event as the wave is as powerful as it is big.
Except for when conditions are calm, Half Moon Bay has been a winter hotspot since the event was created. Darryl “Flea” Virostko has won the most events with Greg Long capturing the ’08 crown. To add to the mystique of the event the contestants are not notified of their invitation until 24 hours prior to the staging. That means that in less than a day’s time they must prepare for cold weather, frigid water, wicked conditions and mutant waves. That doesn’t give the riders a lot of time to dwell upon the Wave and maybe that is for the better.
Tags:
Leave a comment
Not So Fast! To publish your comment, you have to login
Not Registered? Register now as it only take 20 seconds!
Click here to browse
0 comments