World’s top surfer enjoys ‘ best day ever’ at Mavericks.
Several elite bigwave surfers savor glorious conditions at Mavericks
Word spread quickly in the bigwave surfing community when it was learned that Kai Lenny was coming to Mavericks. He’s the best in the world, deeply respected and admired by all, and the 28yearold Hawaiian savored the notion of surfing Tuesday’s big swell.
Lenny’s appearance was brilliant, but by day’s end, there was much more to the story. “All things considered,” said San Francisco’s Grant Washburn, “I think this was the best day we’ve ever had at Mavericks.”
That’s a voice of authority. Washburn has surfed and documented every significant Mavericks swell since January 1992, when the surfing world became aware of the oncesecret spot off the coast of Half Moon Bay. His claim is certainly debatable in the wake of so much history, but this was a day when all of the crucial elements reached optimum level. “Definitely alltime top three, for sure,” said longtime
photographer and water safety expert Frank Quirarte.
For folks driving down the coast from San Francisco, there’s a special moment when you approach the end of Devil’s Slide and behold the spectacle of Montara Beach. On Tuesday morning, in magnificently balmy weather, impossibly giant swells were greeted by a stiff offshore wind, casting plumes of white spray high into the air, fountainlike, as they crashed. The temptation is to just pull over and spectate, for such occasions are rare.
“This is one of the biggest, cleanest Mavericks swells we’ve seen in quite some time,” chief forecaster Kevin Wallis told his surfline. com audience. “It’s such a big swell in Northern California that spots that normally can handle anything, like Ocean Beach, are just a cauldron of whitewater. We’re seeing waves break way, way out there on some crazy outer shoals. Some of the longtime O. B. locals are saying it’s the biggest they’ve seen in years.”
What made Mavericks special, everyone agreed, was the combination of ideal weather, favorable wind, swell direction, wave faces of 50plus feet and the level of talent in the water. “Normally, we get northwest swells and a very specific place to take off on the waves,” Washburn said. “This one was out of the west, with a 20second interval ( translating into especially raw power), and it was hitting that outside reef we used to call the Outer Realm. So there were a number of different takeoff spots, and if you wanted the really big ones, they were out there for the taking.
“I can’t tell you how many ‘ Ride of the Year’ waves I saw,” Washburn said. “Honestly — maybe 20? The wind did switch to a slight onshore in the early afternoon, but it made no difference. It was perfect all day long.”
So perfect that Kai Lenny never left the water. He pulled a 12hour, dawntosunset shift, taking just a 15minute break to “chow down on a burrito” while still on his surfboard.
Lenny grew up on Maui, hoping one day he could surf Peahi (“Jaws”) like the great Laird Hamilton. Nobody ever thought that was possible — until they watched Lenny’s mindblowing performances in recent years. Whatever the option — standup paddling, tow surfing, foiling, windsurfing — Lenny clearly has established himself as the best, most versatile bigwave rider in the world, a prodigy who fulfilled every expectation.
“His approach to Mavericks is extremely aggressive. He just looks different than anybody else on a wave out there,” said Grant ( Twiggy) Baker, a twotime winner of the Mavericks contest and renowned for his feats around the globe. “He’s taken what Laird has done and is running with it. I’m stoked to be my age ( 47) and still learning from the youngsters.”
“Kai’s a freak, man,” Quirarte said. “He’s makin’ it look too easy!”
Lenny spent all of Tuesday without once falling off his board. “Definitely one of the best sessions I’ve ever had out there,” he said in a postdinner phone conversation with The Chronicle. “I crossed some deep personal barriers, things I had to commit to, like sitting superdeep ( closest to the peak) and getting to that outer edge where the secondreef waves were coming in. That really got me excited. I felt like there wasn’t a wave that was too big. It was just a matter of being in the right place.” Things to note:
On Monday morning, Quirarte organized a water safety meeting in the backyard of Old Princeton Landing for surfers, photographers, boat captains and rescue personnel to make sure everything was in place. Throughout the day Tuesday, five highly qualified experts manned jetskis for the specific purpose of saving surfers in trouble. “And we killed it,” Quirarte said afterward. “Bunch of broken boards, but no injuries at all, nobody wiping out and getting swept into the rocks.”
Stunning contrast between the young and old: El Granada’s Luca Padua, who turns 19 this month, had a spectacular, earlymorning towin session with Hawaiian great Jamie Mitchell before the paddlein show began. Riding backside, Padua carved off the bottom of one of the day’s biggest waves and brazenly pulled into a tube he knew he wouldn’t make, earning mad respect all around. Meanwhile, Baker and 51yearold Peter Mel were putting on a show.
“I think Twiggy caught the biggest wave of the day,” Lenny said. “I mean, this is a guy who wants to ride a 100foot wave if he can.” Then there was Mel, snagging a beast on the outer reef and making it clean into the channel. Mel has been driving up from Santa Cruz since the early ’ 90s, “and I’ll tell you what, I think that was the wave of the day,” Washburn said. “I asked Pete,
‘ When have you ever caught a wave better than that?’ He said, ‘ Probably never.’ ”
So many names deserve recognition. Kyle Thiermann, JoJo Roper, Matt Becker, Ocean Beach icon Matt Lopez and Maui’s Ian Walsh were among those most prominently mentioned as Tuesday’s standouts.
It was an important day for San Francisco’s Bianca Valenti, the only woman who consistently surfs the big days at Mavericks. “She caught a couple of absolute bombs,” Quirarte said. “I mean, waves of consequence. Totally proud of her. And it was like the old days out there, with people supporting each other. She got a lot of cheers for her waves.”
“That was so nice,” she said. “That was my favorite part, just the vibe, seeing so many friends out there. Justine Dupont ( of France) was the only other woman out there, I think partly because the lockdown has so many people being extra cautious. But I’m excited for the day when there’s another female out there ( regularly). That day is coming, for sure.” The Mavericks contest, once an exciting part of every bigwave season ( although it wasn’t always held), vanished into obscurity after the sponsoring World Surf League pulled out in August 2019. There hasn’t been any talk of revival, largely because the permit process is long, complicated and often futile. “It just feels like a really dead topic,” Valenti said. “But to me, ( Tuesday) was even better, because the day was so special and so many more surfers were a part of it.”