Page 320 - Melanesia

owever, competitive surfing and con- almost three hundred years ago.

H tests never appealed to Hamilton,
who had watched his father Bill endure the amilton’s drop into Tahiti’s Teahupoʻo
break on the morning of August 17,
Hcompetitive surfing contest politics and
the random luck of the waves in organized 2000 firmly established him in the record-

championship surfing events. Bill Hamilton ed history of surfing. On that day, with a

regarded surfing more as a work of art, rath- larger than normal ocean swell, Darrick Do-

er than based chiefly on wave-by-wave ride erner piloted the watercraft, towing Hamil-

performance scored by judges. Hamilton, ton. Pulling in and releasing the tow rope,

with his professional surfing upbringing, al- Hamilton drove down into the well of the

ways intended a life of surfing, but contin- wave’s enormous tunnel vortex, in full view

ued to reject the professional contest circuit. of boat-based photographers’ and videog-

I n late 1992, Hamilton with two of his close raphers’ cameras. With his signature artistic
friends, big wave riders Darrick Doerner flair, Hamilton continued deeply carving wa-
ter, emerging back over the wave’s shoulder.

and Buzzy Kerbox started using inflatable A still photograph of him riding the wave

boats to tow one another into waves which made the cover of Surfer magazine, with

were too big to catch under paddle power the caption: “oh my god...” The wave became

alone. This innovation is chronicled in the known as “the heaviest ever ridden”. In the

documentary film, Riding Giants. The tech- filmed coverage of this event in the motion

nique would later be modified to use per- picture Riding Giants, Doerner said “I towed

sonal water craft and become a popular in- him onto this wave. And it was to the point

novation. where I almost said ‘Don’t let go of the rope,’
and when I looked back he was gone.”
i lton calls it a return to the traditional Ha-
waiian way of surfing, as practiced by King
Kamehameha I and his queen Kaʻahumanu