Mavericks is ON!

Peter Mel of Santa Cruz spent much of January and February on-call. He could spend his time doing whatever he wanted, but he knew that at any moment his cell phone could ring, and when it did, he would drop everything and respond.

Nathan Fletcher of San Clemente CA, heads for the water for Heat 4 of Mavericks Surf Contest.

By Scott Hargis
Published: March, 2006

Peter Mel of Santa Cruz spent much of January and February on-call. He could spend his time doing whatever he wanted, but he knew that at any moment his cell phone could ring, and when it did, he would drop everything and respond.

Being on-call isn’t exactly an unusual thing in this modern world. Doctors, nurses, firefighters, police officers and other emergency responders are accustomed to spending at least part of their time off with their pager or cell phone on. The high seriousness of their work, the consequences if they can’t respond quickly to a call to duty, makes this irritating arrangement easier to tolerate.

Peter Mel, however, is a surfer. Not just a run-of-the-mill, Saturday-morning at Ocean Beach kind of surfer, but a big-wave surfer; one of only a handful of people on the planet that can challenge waves seven or eight times his height.

Mel was on-call with 23 other elite surfers in locations around the world, waiting for three words to appear as a text message on their phones: Mavericks is On. Mon., Feb. 6, the message arrived.

Mavericks, the annual surf competition held at El Granada, CA (just north of Half Moon Bay) boasts some of the highest waves anywhere in the world. This year’s contest was held on Tue., Feb. 7.

Mavericks is an invitation-only event. Organizers identify 19 participants in advance, and the remaining five are selected by surfing fans who voted online for their favorite competitors. The competitors, who come from as far away as Brazil, wait for that message: It’s on. When it comes, they have only 24-hours to buy a plane ticket and show up on the beach at Pillar Point for the contest. They aren’t the only ones; the event draws as many as 30,000 or more passionate spectators who crowd the beaches and the high bluff overlooking the waves. Still more line the bulwarks of a small fleet of boats bobbing in the surf just outside the big-wave zone, and at least two helicopters buzz overhead following the action with TV cameras. NBC, Sports Illustrated, Surfer Magazine and many more news organizations now cover the event, which has grown exponentially in the seven years of its existence.

Event organizers, headed by Jeffrey Clark, monitor storms originating in the Sea of Japan, using satellite images, a network of observers and a series of deep-ocean buoys across the North Pacific. Clark is looking for the perfect combination of conditions: wind, tide, the size of the waves, frequency, fetch and duration. He knows that sometime between January and March, it’ll happen. When it does, the call goes out worldwide, and a chain of events is set in motion, culminating in one of the most prestigious surf competitions in the world.

Among the world-class surfers participating in this year’s contest was Grant Twiggy Baker, a 31-year-old from South Africa who joined the competition as one of the write-in candidates chosen by fans. He would go on to win this year’s event, pocketing the $30,000 in prize money offered by Mavericks.

The surfers compete six at a time, in heats, much like a track and field event. Each heat lasts 45 minutes. During this time, the athletes can ride as many waves as they like. A panel of judges scores each ride, with the best ride and/or biggest wave counting double. Three surfers from each round advance to the next, and by 1:30PM it’s down to six finalists. Peter Mel was eliminated in the first round, after a controversial scoring by the judges.

The Twentyfour, as they’re known, are towed out to the waves by jet-skis. The action takes place about half a mile off shore, where the undersea geography creates the right conditions for the giant swells to build and make 40 and even 50-foot walls, which crash onto a jagged reef called Sail Rock. A squad of rescue craft hovers nearby, ready to rush in and lift a surfer out before he slams into the rocks.

If you’re on the 2nd or 3rd floor of a building, look out the window at the street below. You’re about 20 or 30 feet up. This is the view from the peak of a big wave. The face of the wave, below you, is nearly vertical. Now imagine you’re balanced on a narrow board, pointed straight down and dropping. When you reach the bottom, if you haven’t wiped out, you’ll execute a high-speed, sharp right turn, and ride across the face of the wave, with a rooster tail of foam flying out behind you. The crest of the wave is now arching over your head; the noise is deafening. You can feel the thundering power of the wave through your entire body. Lose your nerve, or your balance, and you’ll be crushed under several hundred tons of foaming chaos before being swept over the sharp rocks of the reef.

Most surfers are out of their comfort zone in waves higher than two times your height, says Thomas Bottari, manager of O’Neill Surf Shop in Mill Valley. Seeing an event like this really gives you respect for what those guys can do. Events like Mavericks are a big source of inspiration for local surfers, according to Bottari, who is an avid surfer himself.

These are A-plus conditions, gushed an event organizer who identified himself as ‘Wingnut’. The waves are even bigger than last year, and the weather is just beautiful.

Indeed, the warm, windless day seemed ideal, bringing out a larger-than-expected crowd to enjoy the spectacle. Although dominated by locals, there were some who had traveled several hours to watch.

As the news helicopter swept down the beach, its camera trained on the crowd, the most common remark was Oh, my God, I hope my boss isn’t watching! Further down the beach, a woman was overheard asking her friend, Did you put on sunscreen? You can’t show up at the office tomorrow with a tan.