SURFERMAG.COM ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
Laird Hamilton - Part Two: A Surfermag.com exclusive interview.
Laird Hamilton is a unique amalgamation of pioneer test pilot and waterman, a sort of Chuck Yeager meets Duke Kahanamoku, if you will. He is not only relevant, Laird Hamilton defines what will be relevant. He's forging our surfing future— that's right, yours and mine-- at an exponential rate. And oh yeah, he hangs with James Bond.
Laird came by the SURFER magazine office to discuss the DVD release of The Ride / The Day: A two-part expose into the world of Maui's most notorious surf spot and the principals who claim her as their own. The Ride, the first segment of the DVD, was a big winner at X Dance Film Festival, receiving Best Film honors.
In a unique twist to the traditional interview, the Surfermag.com message board regulars were queried for questions to ask Laird, and they didn't let me down. Of course the occasional "Why did you have to pull Rick Kane's leash?" had to be tossed out. But for the most part our website regulars came up with some thoughtful and intriguing questions for Laird, and for that I am thankful. – Scott Bass
SURFERMAG.COM: Some of the folks in the Surfermag.com message board community wanted to know if you're actively pursuing a 100-foot wave...is that a goal of yours, the 100-foot wave?
LAIRD: You know this whole 100-foot wave thing I have nothing to do with it. I am actively pursuing trying to find and ride the biggest waves in the world, period. And whatever those waves may be and how high and how wide and how thick and how shallow and how mean, the waves will determine. But this whole 100-foot thing is so ambiguous to me. I have a hard time knowing how big it is half the time we go out. We just go, "hey it's big today" or "today it's friendly" or "today it's not friendly" or "it's shallow here" or "this is a thick one" or you know so... And for me, I'm never going to pursue something that the end result is one climactic moment. That would be not only a waste of time but it would be sad to go, "OK my whole thing is to ride the 100-foot wave and then the 100-foot wave comes and you're like OK and that's it." Then what? You're done? You stop? That would be sad.
SURFERMAG.COM: Right. It's a little too one-dimensional.
LAIRD: Yeah, sad.
SURFERMAG.COM: Speaking of mean, gnarly waves, I was looking at the DVD and there were some sections in the video where I'm like, "God, if it just held open a little more right there." If you could play the master role and tweak Peahi properly, and maybe make the tube section hold a little longer, or the shoulder a little bit fatter...is there some part of the wave that, if you could, you'd change?
LAIRD: Yeah, the surface. If I could just make it go (flattens the air with his hands) and pull flat and tight like Teahupoo does. If I could make it like Tahiti where it just stretches like Saran wrap then that would probably be the one thing that I'd like to do at Peahi because that's the biggest thing we deal with, the surface.
SURFERMAG.COM: There was a ruckus here last year in Mexico, some tow-in surfers invading, maybe that's not the fair term, but showing up when guys were paddling in. Do you have a take on that? On etiquette involved?
LAIRD: I think that's totally disrespectful. I think when people are out paddle surfing I think that you should go somewhere else or just don't go until they are gone or communicate with the guys and ask them if they want to get towed. I mean, ultimately, there is a line where some guys might go out and paddle surf just to kind of say they can do it even though really it's not happening. Maybe it might be too much or the conditions are not right and they are going to go out and prove a point that they can do it to kind of like, "Hey we're out here paddle surfing so don't come out here and tow." Which I don't necessarily agree with, I think that's where the other side's not playing fair. Like when you got both sides: you got the tow guys and the non-tow guys. The thing is, I'm both. I've paddled Waimea, I surfed huge Hanalei. But you don't go and tow-in a spot where guys are paddle surfing, period. Unless you know everybody in the crowd, they're all friends of yours and you've already communicated that, "Hey you want to go tow onto a couple" and you might tow them too. OK, no problem. Yeah, that's not proper tow etiquette (laughs), the lesser vehicle has right of way. You don't take your motorbike down to a bike path. It's just part of the etiquette of surfing. But then I also hear stories about guys going out at Maverick's when its too big sitting on the shoulder making a point that they can go out and paddle around. OK, well great, congratulations but you're not catching anything. Maybe you're catching one little end shoulder bowl but you're trying to make a point that you can go out there but you're not being productive and you're not really taking advantage of the opportunity. There's only so many waves, life's only so long. Lets try to take advantage of the opportunity of riding these waves and ride them to the maximum instead of wasting them. Because for me, I look at what's going on and I see a lot of wasted riding going on. "OK, yeah you caught a shoulder on one, but then you missed the last 10, no one got them and everybody could be getting all there is to offer." It's like eating part of a dinner and then throwing the rest of it away. These are opportunities that you need to take advantage of and you only have so long to do that, so you need to decide how to do that. Of course there a few bad apples that ruin the whole pie but I can tell you from the beginning at Jaws because our wave at Peahi was never a paddle surfing wave, we never had that problem. We never had that issue of hey paddle vs. tow, that whole thing. And when we do tow waves where guys are paddle surfing there is no reason to do it. Unless you've communicated with the guys and there are so few people that they don't care and you have the right guys and they're driving in a way that they are not effecting people in the water with the rope or with the ski and you know again you always have a few guys hot ridding around.
SURFERMAG.COM: Sure. How do you feel about government intervention or government regulation regarding towing, because I know the state of Hawaii is somewhat involved?
LAIRD: Well right now there is a new thing with licensing people that are towing, which I think really they should license people to get a surfboard at a certain point. The less rules we have, the better because all rules and all governing is going to be geared toward the lowest common denominator which is going to be the lowest person in knowledge or skill level and it just makes for restrictions. Then people are breaking rules and one thing about a license is people think it's a license to kill. All of a sudden you have a license, now it gives me the right to go do it. Just because you have a license doesn't mean that you know what you're doing. They give a lot of people licenses to drive cars and there aren't a lot of good drivers out there. The good thing about that process is that you educate people and give them information that they wouldn't normally have in another situation. So they are getting educated, they're getting exposed to information that will help them in the future if they get in a bad spot.
SURFERMAG.COM: The scary thing would be, "I got my license, now I'm going to Jaws."
LAIRD: Well that's already what we got. That's what I'm saying, were giving these guys a right of passage. They're going, "OK, I got a license, now I'm going out to Jaws." Really a better thing would be, "Can you go out and surf a 20-foot wave paddling." Just go out and paddle onto a 20-footer. Half the guys can't; three-quarters of the guys can't.
SURFERMAG.COM: Which brings up a good point, Derrick Doerner said something along the lines of, "some guys are out here for the wrong reasons." What are those reasons? Can you elaborate on those reasons?
LAIRD: Guys will come up to me and say, "Hey I really want to tow." Why? "Well...I love it" (imitating someone else). And I go, "perfect answer" then you'll be good at it because if it's in your heart and you really want to do it for the reason is you really want to because you're drawn to it, big waves attract you, you desire to do them, great. If you think its cool, if you think you're going to make some money, if you think chicks think its happening, if you think all these other reasons that you can come up with, then when you get in the moment of disaster and you're sitting in there and here comes a 30-foot set and you're going to be wondering why you go there and you're probably not going to react in a proper way. Where if you're there because you love it, you'll react properly. You'll just be cool and you'll go, "I'm here because I love this."
SURFERMAG.COM: Do you think that there are guys out there that are doing it just for money?
Laird: Absolutely. I think there are guys out there that don't really want to be out there. They have the skill to do it, but it's not what they love to do but now you got a bounty up. Some guy's going, "I'll give you a hundred grand if you go catch a giant wave." All of the sudden that just pushes them over the edge. Like they've been on the edge the whole time, but now its like there is a hundred grand involved. Now they've crossed over and there they are running around doing weird stuff and then all of the sudden before you know it they are getting pounded on the bottom and then they are washing up on the rocks and they are spitting up water. You know, we all can be there but it's about your choices of why to go there. And that's the thing I kind of despise or resent about things like a bounty. You're going to go and push people to do things that they wouldn't normally do for your own promotion. And you know what? At the end of the day there are enough of us who are going to do it ourselves. There are enough of us that are willing to do it because we truly love, it that you don't necessarily need [to pay]. You might as well take that money and pay some of these guys that are doing it already and say "we are supporting you in your pursuit of trying to do this." There are always going to be [bounties], it's part of human nature. We got every reason, we got all the reasons out in the water. You go down the list everyone's got some reason. You know I talk to Derrick and Dave about this all the time, if there was no one in the world, we would still be trying to figure out a way to go out and do it because this is just who we are and this is what we really love. And the other things that come from it are just byproducts. If you are able to make a living from it, that's a byproduct. If you're able to do whatever you're doing around it, these are just byproducts of your love, your genuine appreciation and love for the ocean and your desire to be near that power and experience that power. There are guys out there for the wrong reasons too. Those are the people who are the most dangerous to themselves first of all and then to us ultimately. In the end, we're going to pay the price. I mean that's why I wear flotation all the time. I don't always want to wear it, do you think I always want to put flotation on and wear these big jackets? No. And do I need to all the time? Probably not. But you can't tell people to wear flotation if you're not wearing it yourself. So if something happens, you come up and we have you and we can do something with you to help you.
SURFERMAG.COM: So there are guys that are driven by their ego rather than their heart. It's unfortunate that we can't quantify that, that we can't...
LAIRD: measure it (laughs)? You can see it. It's like a dog. Dogs have a certain instinct about people that are just like, "I'm not right with this person" and you can see by their behavior what they do. And actually they know too, but unfortunately it takes until the moment of truth and what happens is a lot of times guys get away with making really bad mistakes, then all of a sudden they get more confident, "I made it, I survived it..." That is not what we wanted to have happen. We wanted it to have to opposite effect on you, which was that you got humbled from the experience. But then I've seen it the other way too, where I've seen guys really over-confident about it. First of all, they are ignorant on how powerful the ocean is and about being respectful to the waves. So they come out with this attitude and they get hammered so heavy the next year they are like changed people, they have been born again. They are totally changed and it's awesome. That is what we are looking for because they've come back with a totally new humility that is essential for what we are doing. There's confidence, there's ego, but there is a line of humility that you need to have when you are doing this because you need to understand. If you look at all the top guys Kelly, Andy, Rob, all these guys, there is a certain humility that everybody has through the line that the a few guys right below don't have. I'm not sure why that is; it's because maybe they haven't experience this or maybe that's what's stopping them from going the next level. Maybe that lack of humility is stopping them from being one of the better ones.
SURFERMAG.COM: So it would be fair to say then that the guys that are out there for the wrong reasons are the guys that haven't reached that moment of humility, good humility.
LAIRD: I think that's a big part of it. I think a big part of the guys who are out there for the wrong reasons is because they are not genuine about their intentions, they're not being realistic about it. By doing that they have to be in denial, so what is the first thing they are going to deny? That this thing is more powerful than them. That will be their first step in denial and then it will just be tiered down from there.
SURFERMAG.COM: This is actually another great segue. Does surfing big Peahi heighten your spirituality?
LAIRD: Absolutely.
SURFERMAG.COM: And how so?
LAIRD: I just think that when you get out in those days everybody becomes pretty friendly. When it's really, really big and it's really heavy everybody gets really, really nice. We always say someone will fight you for a two-foot wave but they'll give you for a twenty-two-foot wave and there is something about the humility that brings us a certain check of that. Yes we have to remember who we are and where we are and our sometimes insignificant role in life and on the earth. Our insignificance in the whole scheme of life, that we are not really such controlling creatures. Even though we have all these great heavy things we can do as humans, we are still at the mercy of you know...
SURFERMAG.COM: Do you think a two-foot day can provide that same type of spiritual...
LAIRD: I think you can have an enlightening two-foot day when you're sharing it with the right people in the right situation and you're really getting the purity of the experience...
SURFERMAG.COM: ...So it's not the size of the wave, forgive me for interrupting, but rather the purity of experience?
LAIRD: The experience of it and its also your level. Some people can go out when it's two or three feet and your first ride is pretty incredible. First two-foot wave that you standing up and actually go a ways is pretty awesome. We spend the rest of our live trying to get there but now for us we gotta go ride 80-footers to go get that same sensation again.
SURFERMAG.COM: There has been some talk about an autobiography or a movie about Laird Hamilton. Now the basic elements for any story, as you know, are characters, conflict and resolution. Now your life is filled with characters, we know how that's taken care of. How would you explain the conflict in your life and the resolution of that conflict?
LAIRD: (Thinks) Well you know the conflict of anybodies life is fighting between doing the right thing and the wrong thing.
SURFERMAG.COM: And what is that in Laird Hamilton's life?
LAIRD: That, that has to do with being a good person and a bad person. I think it's the
same for everybody, it's just at which level. It's about being honest with yourself, about
being true. I think that's my biggest battle. My mom told me once, "If you can't be true
to yourself, you can't be true to anybody." So really being true to yourself and then
dealing with all your inner conflicts, all the things you desire versus the things that are
right. Sometimes they are the same, sometime they're opposite. You might desire to go
do something that's not good. You know, you see someone who cuts you off on the road,
you desire to go pull the guy out of his car, but instead you think that's not the best thing
to do and you just smile and wave at him and keep driving. You know, so I think that it's
a daily thing and that coming from my background I've had many times throughout my
life where I could have chosen to go left and I went right and sometimes I chose to go
right and I should have gone left. But at the end of the day, the fact that I'm still sitting
here right now and I have family and friends and children and I'm able to go and pursue
my passions and my career riding waves and all the other phenomenal things I've been
exposed to is testimony to choosing some of the right rights and some of the right lefts
along the way and then just refining it. Just keep trying to refine who you are as a person
and being a man.
Read Part One Here
Purchase the new DVD The Ride / The Day.
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