Word: hamilton
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...high. But with the boards and techniques available then, it was not possible to go much higher. In the '70s and '80s surfers instead sought to conquer challenges on smaller waves with a range of turning and tube-riding maneuvers. Then in the early '90s came Laird Hamilton, a blond, 6-ft. 3-in., 220-lb. former model and surfing prodigy, who brought big-wave surfing crashing back onto center stage...
Born in California but raised in Hawaii from age 2, Hamilton, 40, became the acknowledged dragon slayer of surf--a glamorous outsize personality who tested the limits in everything he did, often as camera shutters whirred. A thrill junkie, he surfed the highest waves, bungee jumped from a 700-ft. bridge and broke the European speed record for windsurfing. He even stunt surfed in the opening sequence of the 2002 James Bond film Die Another Day. But since childhood Hamilton had been mesmerized by the huge outer reef breaks that appeared after some Pacific winter storms. He regularly surfed...
...summer of 1992 Hamilton and some surf buddies were taking turns dragging one another on surfboards behind a boat, "and a little light went on in our heads. We thought this might be an incredible way to surf big waves," he says. They tried it out that winter when the surf got up, and suddenly they were gliding onto big waves with ease. Then they started using shorter boards, which are more maneuverable. Foot straps held the surfers in place as they were towed onto waves by jet skis at speeds of about 40 m.p.h., with top speeds reaching...
...Pacific happens, adding 20% to 30% to the power of storms likely to impact prime surfing sites, surfers will have a chance at 100-ft. swells. Two jet skiers claim they saw 100-ft. waves breaking several miles outside San Francisco's Maverick's reef in 2002, and Hamilton says he has seen 100-ft. waves on the outer reefs between Hawaii's Oahu and Kauai islands. "Using these machines and the little boards, we're going into outer space," says Clark, pioneer of the big swells of Maverick's reef. "We don't know where it's going...
FOUNDING FOES Why the rivalry between Jefferson and Hamilton lives...