QUIKSILVER Men Who Ride Mountains Big Wave Event

The Quiksilver Mavericks Men Who Ride Mountains Big Wave Event will be the first surf contest ever held at Mavericks, the legendary big-wave reef located off the tip of Pillar Point in Half Moon Bay, California. An elite squad of twenty of the world’s best big-wave riders from northern California, southern California, Hawaii and Australia will be on call from November 1, 1998 to January 27, 1999 waiting for an ideal day of 20 foot plus surf.

The ideal day and the 20 surfers will be chosen by Jeff Clark, a local Half Moon Bay surfer who pioneered Mavericks in the mid-seventies, surfing it alone for more than a decade before introducing it to the world in 1990. Clark will oversee the event, calling the day, briefing the competitors, overseeing the judging and the water patrol as the 20 surfers challenge one of the most dangerous waves on earth for a total prize purse of $50,000 and a first prize of $10,000.

Quiksilver USA is the sole sponsor of the event, a company that has over 10 years of experience throwing such spectacular big money, big-wave contests. It’s what Quiksilver does for fun. It’s their way of reinvesting money and excitement into the sport that has given them so much of both.

In 1997, Quiksilver USA and Quiksilver Europe combined to sell $231 million dollars worth of surf shorts, beach clothing, girls beachwear, wetsuits, snowboards, snowboarding boots and snowboard apparel. That’s a lot of money by any standard, and it’s a tremendous amount of money to be made by a bunch of guys, who, if the truth were known, spend most of their time running around in short pants.

If wearing short pants to work is a part of the Quiksilver corporate culture, it’s because short pants are at the foundation of Quiksilver’s success. Quiksilver was started in the late sixties by Alan Green and John Law, two surfers from Torquay, Australia, who were keen to figure out a way to make a living at the beach. Looking to their own needs for inspiration, Green and Law began manufacturing and selling functional, comfortable and durable boardshorts for surfers.

By 1974, Quiksilver was a solid surf wear company, established in Australia and generating a buzz that was spreading around the world. In 1976 a transplanted Californian named Jeff Hakman traveled from Hawaii to Torquay to compete in the prestigious Bells Beach event. He left Torquay with one of the coveted Bells trophies (he was the first American to win the event) and also an agreement to distribute Quiksilver in the United States. In Newport Beach, CA, Hakman teamed up with a friend, business whiz and fellow surfer Bob McKnight. They set to work building an empire. In 10 years time, they had one.

By 1986, Quiksilver had grown to $18.6 million in sales and took its stock public. That same year, Quiksilver began marketing its technical snow apparel line to complete the Quiksilver logo of a wave breaking around a snow-covered mountain.
Quiksilver became a success in the surfing world by establishing and maintaining a high profile of quality products, quality athletes and quality events. In 1986, Quiksilver established their first specialty big-wave event, the Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational. Held at Waimea Bay on the North Shore of Oahu on a day of perfect 25′ waves, the Eddie has been held intermittently. In 1990, Contest Director George Downing finally got the perfect day he was looking for, and the contest went off in all senses of the word in 25′+ surf at Waimea Bay. The contest was spectacular. All who witnessed it will remember it to the end of their days. Since then, Waimea has very stubbornly refused to cooperate, and the contest has been held only once, in 1996, when they ran one of two rounds and called it off when the surf petered out.

In 1991 Quiksilver USA purchased Quiksilver Europe. In 1993 Quiksilver began designing and marketing junior sportswear under the name Roxy by Quiksilver. The amazing growth and popularity of Roxy inspired Quiksilver to roll out Roxy snowboard wear, girls and accessories lines. In November of 1993, Quiksilver bought the Raisin Company, a leader in the junior swimwear market. In 1997, the Quiksilver Winter Sports division introduced a revolutionary line of snowboard boots and bindings under the Arcane label. That year also saw the purchase of Mervin manufacturing, the maker of Lib Tech and Gnu Snowboards, and Bent Metal bindings.

Now it’s 1998, only 30 years after John Law and Alan Green got busy, and their early efforts have spawned an action sports empire. Quiksilver is the umbrella for 10 different labels: Quiksilver Boys, Q, The Raisin Company, Radio Fiji, Leilani, Roxy, Quiksilver WinterSports, Arcane, Lib Technologies and Gnu. Masters at the art of retailing, Quiksilver operates 51 Quiksilver Boardriders Clubs around the world, including two Quiksilver Roxy stores and 355 Quiksville in-store shops.
Quiksilver operates from its headquarters in Costa Mesa, CA and recently bought a 225,000 square foot distribution warehouse in Huntington Beach, CA and will soon move to an 80,000 square foot merchandising, design, production and office facility on the same site. Quiksilver employs 750 people worldwide, including 5X Mens professional surfing champion Kelly Slater and 4X women’s professional surfing champion Lisa Anderson.

Quiksilver sponsors the Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau Big Wave Contest, the Quiksilver Roxy Pro in Hawaii, the Quiksilver Pro at Grajagan, Java, Indonesia. And now they are introducing this new spectacle, the Quiksilver Mavericks Men Who Ride Mountains Big Wave Event. Quiksilver hopes to bring big-wave excitement and credibility to the American mainland. They are working closely with Jeff Clark to throw a contest that will show off both the awesome power of Mavericks, and the extraordinary courage and talent of the men who ride it best.

Maverick’s Perfect waves are rare. Ride able waves that exceed 20 feet are rare. And the rarest thing of all is a perfect, ride able wave that exceeds 20 feet. Mavericks is that rarest of things, a Northern California reef that can, when it’s in the mood, sort all the variables of swell, tide, wind and current and create some of the biggest, meanest, most challenging waves on earth. Mavericks is awesome to behold, one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the Surfing World, and part of the wonder of Mavericks is how it managed to stay hidden for so long.

In 1960, a local Half Moon Bay surfer named Alex Matienzo and two friends let their curiosity overwhelm their common sense, and they paddled out to take a look at this big-wave reef they’d feared from afar. “Our boards weren’t very big and we didn’t have leashes so we basically just rode the inside,” Matienzo said, 30 years later. While the three were checking the place out, a German Shepherd named Maverick swam off the beach to join them. “Maverick was a water dog, born in Hawaii and he loved to ride on our surfboards,” Matienzo said. “Usually we let him come with us, but this place we were surfing was way outside and we were thinking of sharks and all kinds of things. I grabbed Maverick, paddled him into the beach and had to tie him to my car. I went back out there, but that was the first and last time we surfed the place. Too hard. Too spooky. We called it Maverick’s Point after that.”

Matienzo moved to San Diego for a few years. When he came back to Half Moon Bay in 1975, he heard rumors that a local kid named Jeff Clark was surfing that spot he had named after a German Shepherd. The rumors were true. Jeff Clark first paddled out at Mavericks in February of 1975, when he was 17 years old. “I’d seen the place breaking for a few years, and in 1975 I finally got up the nerve to check it out. I tried to get people to paddle out there with me, but no one was interested. They all said, ‘There’s no way I’m going to paddle out there and drown. You go ahead, and I’ll watch you from the channel.’”
Clark’s natural stance is right-foot forward, which means he faces the wave when he’s going left. At first, Clark rode the left at Mavericks, an act that, to this day, is considered insane. “I didn’t know any different,” Clark said. “The left looked good, so I rode it.”

Clark soon took interest in the right, which was longer and more make able than the left. Adjusting to conditions, Clark learned to surf with his left-foot forward, which is an athletic feat similar to 49ers quarterback Steve Young learning to throw touchdown passes with his other hand. Clark got the right wired and soon he had his own Private Idaho. He surfed Mavericks all by himself for 15 years. Some winters he was out there multiple times, some winters he didn’t surf it at all. To see the reef breaking now, with boats in the channel and two dozen guys in the lineup, it’s hard to imagine a guy having the nerve or desire to surf it all by himself. Clark did, with few witnesses, but even wildmen get lonely and as the eighties became the nineties, Clark began looking for company.

During December of 1990, one day after a giant swell had rocked Waimea Bay and Quiksilver ran the Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational, Jeff Clark was working in San Francisco and saw how big the swell was and immediately arraigned to leave the job site. At the beach, he found two Santa Cruz surfers, Tom Powers and Dave Schmitt, checking the surf. Ocean Beach was breaking to the horizon, and neither Powers nor Schmidt were too interested in paddling out and getting pounded. “I asked them if they wanted to surf that swell in a perfect peak,” Clark said. “They thought I was kidding, but they tagged along with me to Mavericks.”

Up on the cliff, Powers and Schmidt blew their minds at the sight of a perfect wave breaking at 20-foot plus. “It looked like Waimea,” Dave Schmidt said. “I couldn’t believe this place had been right under our noses for all these years.” Powers and Schmidt got their minds blown again when they paddled out and got a close look. “Oh man, it was amazing,” Powers said. “The meanest, sickest wave I’d ever seen. Schmidt and I were staring at waves you could have fit the Santa Cruz Lighthouse into. It was awesome.”

The next day, Dave called his brother Richard in Hawaii and babbled about the 20-foot plus surf he had ridden just up the coast, in Half Moon Bay. “I thought he was crazy,” Richard said. “But I felt something was up, so when I came home from Hawaii I brought my 9′ 6″. I got one day there in the spring and I couldn’t believe it. Here was a wave with all the power and movement and challenge of Waimea Bay, and it was right under our noses.” Powers and Schmidt cut the ribbon. Where Clark had enjoyed 15 years of solitude, he now had company, more and more company through the early nineties. A pattern established itself. Mavericks separated the curious from the serious, usually after the first session. Many paddled out to have a look, while a minority found they actually liked the dangerous isolation of the spot.

Maverick’s surfers roughly belonged to three groups: Santa Cruz guys, Pacifica/Half Moon Bay guys and San Francisco guys. Santa Cruz, Vince Collier became the Pied Piper of Mavericks, luring up friends and local groms to give them a taste of real ocean. From the opposite direction, Doc Renneker also dragged a lot of guys out there to see if they liked it. Most didn’t, some did. The crowd of regulars grew, and word began to spread.

In 1992, editors at SURFER Magazine began hearing rumors of surfers riding giant waves in the Half Moon Bay area. Discrete phone calls to Jeff Clark lead to Clark’s permission to run a magazine article on the spot, if it was done right. In the June, 1992, SURFER Magazine did it right with an article called, appropriately, Cold Sweat. The article featured a sequence of Richard Schmidt taking off on one of the biggest waves ever attempted at Mavericks. This thing was huge, Schmidt did everything right and he still got blasted. The world got a wake up call.

The media frenzy reached a fever pitch during the winter of 1994. What had started out as a very calm winter throughout the Pacific kicked into gear around the middle of December. An unusual weather pattern produced a steady stream of huge storms from straight out of the west, all of them pointed directly at Mavericks.

On December 19, a young Santa Cruz surfer named Jay Moriarity got a ride out in a boat, jumped off, paddled straight out into the lineup and paddled straight into history. Moriarity took off on a giant wave, got held up in the lip by the offshore winds and was launched over the falls into one of the most spectacular wipeouts in the history of the sport. Moriarity hit bottom and was held under for a solid 30 seconds before he surfaced, sputtering and glad to be alive. That same morning, Zach Wormhoudt also ate it bad on a wave even bigger than Jay’s, and came to the surface coughing up blood.

Four days later, on December 23, Hawaiian surfer Mark Foo wiped out on a wave that was nothing compared to what Moriarity and Wormhoudt had endured, but something went wrong. Foo drowned. Whether he was pinned under water by his leash or he swallowed water or he hit his head, no one will ever know. But his body was discovered several hours later by one of the photo boats. And Mavericks became world famous. What was once Jeff Clark’s Private Idaho now belonged to the world. The media swarmed the place and the frenzy hit a fever pitch during the El Nino winter of 1997/98.

Beginning in September and going straight through to spring, Mavericks broke an unprecedented 55 times with Santa Cruz surfer Peter Mel leading the charge. It all peaked on Big Friday, January 30, when a giant winter swell met up with clean conditions and offshore winds to create the biggest, meanest day ever seen at Mavericks. A few guys paddled out, and even fewer actually took off on waves. Santa Cruz charger Flea Virostko made a small mistake on the corner of one wave that turned into a big mistake as he got clobbered by a top-to-bottom 20 foot section, then got dragged through the rocks, where his leash got snagged and tried to drown him. Flea lived. A little while later a Santa Cruz surfer named Neil “Moose” Matthies took off in the bowl, got creamed at the bottom and was held down for two waves, more than 35 seconds, which is an eternity when you’re getting tumbled helplessly in freezing, black water. Moose lived, too, but Mavericks won that day.

And now it’s the winter of 1998/99. Meteorologists are calling for La Nina conditions, which mean lots of clear, cold weather, but no one knows what will happen to the surf. One thing is for sure however; Mavericks will host its very own big-wave surf contest. The level of big-wave surfing has been incredibly high during the last few months of the 20th Century. The best big-wave surfers are tuned physically and mentally from nearly a decade of surfing Mavericks. Their equipment is specialized, the desire is there, and now the Quiksilver Mavericks Men Who Ride Mountains Big Wave Event is going to focus all of that talent and desire into one concentrated day of big-wave surfing. All of the 20 will surf with the knowledge that they are in a deadly environment, a beautiful environment, an environment that demands their total concentration and skill. It’s going to be epic, just you wait and see.