The Prince of Maverick’s
Jay Moriarity, one of the greats of big-wave surfing, is killed in the Maldives
Courtesy of Outside Magazine

It’s UNFORTUNATE that the 1995 surf-magazine cover shot by which many will remember Jay Moriarity—wiping out from atop a 20-footer at Maverick’s, the legendary break 50 miles north of his hometown of Santa Cruz, California—will serve as a visual epitaph for one of the world’s most adept big-wave riders. Moriarity, a gregarious waterman who helped pioneer the high-stakes sport of using jet-ski tow-ins to catch immense West Coast faces, perished while diving on June 15 in the Maldives.

Moriarity had traveled to the Maldives to train and participate in a photo shoot with wetsuit maker O’Neill, one of his sponsors. He had been breath-hold diving along a tethered dive line off the Lohifushi Island resort. After noticing he was missing, colleagues organized a search party, and they discovered his body that evening, 50 feet down on the ocean floor. According to O’Neill sponsorship manager Bernhard Ritzer, divers found the 22-year-old in a sitting position, still holding the line.

Back in Santa Cruz, friends knew Moriarity as an easygoing presence in the high-stakes world of big-wave surfing. “It was never about telling people he got the biggest wave,” recalled tow-in partner Jeff Clark. “It was always about pure enjoyment. Jay was a surfer with no ego. Whether he was helping somebody who had never been on a surfboard or was surfing with the best in the world, he never had a bad word to say. He was one in a billion.”