December 6, 2007
Legendary day at Maverick’s

‘Perhaps the biggest wave ever witnessed at Maverick’s’

JULIE JAG
SENTINEL STAFF WRITER
HALF MOON BAY — Grant Washburn knows his limits. When it comes to waves, a six-story wall of water is enough to convince the San Francisco big wave surfer to sit it out. That explains why the man known as the “gentle giant” was on a cliff filming documentary footage when perhaps the biggest wave ever witnessed at Maverick’s rolled through the break near Half Moon Bay on Tuesday.

Santa Cruz’s Darryl ‘Flea’ Virostko rides a monster wave at Maverick’s Tuesday. (Frank Quirarte photo)
“It was big. It was about 80 feet high,” Washburn reported in an interview on National Public Radio on Wednesday. “It was possibly the biggest Maverick’s we’ve ever seen.”

Grant Washburn talks to NPR about “possibly the biggest wave we’ve ever seen” at Maverick’s.

Grant Washburn talks to NPR about waiting for the big waves at Maverick’s on Tuesday.

See video from surfline.com

Few who braved the icy water and fog on Tuesday in search of big surf would dispute the waves that reared up off the reef that day were big. How big, however, is up for discussion.

Three-time Maverick’s Surf Contest champion Darryl “Flea” Virostko of Santa Cruz joined about 15 surfers in the lineup Tuesday, most of whom were using personal watercraft to tow into the hulking waves. Virostko said he guesses most of the waves measured about 50 feet at the face, and about 25-30 feet at the back. By comparison, when Virostko won his third Maverick’s title in 2005, the waves were considered epic with 50- to 60-foot faces.

“It was dumping. It was big, it was hard to get out of the way on the Jet Skis,” said Virostko of Tuesday’s surf. “It was unbelievable. It was definitely one of the biggest days I’ve seen in the decade.”

The swell arrived just days before Friday’s opening ceremonies of the Maverick’s Surf Contest. Sometime between Friday and March 31, 24 of the world’s best big wave surfers could be called on with 24-hours notice to throw down against each other and Mother Nature. Last year, no sufficient swell materialized and the contest was canceled. Perhaps that’s why most of the invitees came to surf this week’s swell prior to the opening. Among the surfers in the lineup Tuesday were 2006 Maverick’s winner Grant “Twiggy” Baker of South Africa, Rodrigo Resende of Brazil and Pete Mel of Santa Cruz, as well as Virostko and Washburn.

Washburn has a knack for finding big waves at Maverick’s. He caught what some estimated as 100-foot faces there on a shaky home camera in 2003, during a day now known locally as Big Wednesday.

Jeff Clark, the first to surf Maverick’s and the man responsible for giving the surf contest the green light, has seen plenty of waves of all sizes roll over its reef. After surfing at Maverick’s on Tuesday, Clark said that if Tuesday had been within the contest period, he wouldn’t have given the contest the go-ahead. While the waves were clean and smooth enough, the thick fog would have been a deterrent. In addition, the wave size wasn’t very safe for paddle surfers.

Clark chose to tow-surf Tuesday and paid the price. He injured his leg and hip while being held under by three waves. The one he was riding proved to be too big for Resende, his tow-in partner, to pick him up on the jet ski before another wave rolled in. The hold-down left him feeling Washburn’s estimate of 80-foot waves could be right.

“There was some big stuff. It could have been,” Clark said. “It felt like it was 80-foot waves that rolled over me. … It was one of the longest hold downs I’ve ever had.”

It could be several more days before an accurate appraisal is made of the biggest wave’s size, if one is ever made.

Measuring waves is tricky business. The Billabong XXL Big Wave Awards have been trying to pin down wave sizes since 2001. The general method is to measure a surfer’s height, then look at a photo of the surfer and his wave and measure how many of him would fit in the face. Ken “Skindog” Collins of Santa Cruz won the Ride of the Year last year on a wave that measured 40 feet from the back, or 70 plus feet at the face. That’s one of the largest ever measured.

Pacifica surf photographer Frank Quirarte has helped with the Billabong XXL awards. He said measuring waves “is very subjective,” and even though he was in the water at Maverick’s on Tuesday, he didn’t know how big the waves were in front of his lens.

“Eighty-feet might be stretching it a bit. But, for a period, the fog rolled in and we couldn’t see the outside. A few waves rolled by that could have been in 65-plus-foot range,” he wrote in an e-mail. “The tallest wave measured for [the Billabong XXL awards] has been in the low 70s. If we had a cliff angle, maybe we could have been able to tell, but they were fogged in the entire day.

Quirarte added, “It’s all big and dangerous no matter how they measure up.”

That’s something everyone can agree on.

“I know what a 50-foot-high wave is going to do to me,” Washburn said in his interview. “And when I see an 80-foot-high wave, I kind of want to get out of the way.”

Contact Julie Jag at jjag@santacruzsentinel.com.