Catch a Big Wave and You’re Sitting on Top of Fifty Grand

Fishermen have had their fun with El Nino. Now it’s the surfers’ turn.

“El Nino conditions have heightened prospects for a winter of epic waves,” says Sean Collins, a noted surf forecaster from Huntington Beach and every big-wave rider’s friend.

And with this prediction the call has gone out to surfers near and far: Stake out your favorite break until the mother of all swells hits, then hitch a ride on a cascading wall of water high enough to give you a nosebleed and powerful enough to hold you down until you turn blue in the face. And hope you emerge unscathed.

Who knows, if you survive the drop and negotiate the bottom turn, you might find yourself $50,000 richer come next spring.

That is the prize being offered for this winter’s K2 Big Wave Challenge, now under way at your favorite big-wave break, be it Mavericks in Central California, Todos Santos Island in Baja California or the famous and notorious Waimea Bay in Hawaii, or any of several secret spots throughout the North Pacific.

This unusual contest, sponsored by Los Angeles’ own K2 Inc., is the brainchild of Bill Sharp, who works for the Orange County clothing company, Katin, which is owned by K2.

A longtime surfer, Sharp says he never would have come up with the idea were it not for El Nino, or in this particular case, El Ninos.

“I was up feeding my baby at about 3 o’clock one morning and listening to the news,” he says, “and all I kept hearing was, ‘El Nino, El Nino, El Nino.’ Then I started thinking that there is a pretty reasonable chance that this winter someone will ride the biggest wave anyone has ever caught.”

This is big news for the relatively small community of big-wave surfers who risk their lives every winter for little or no money while young hot-shots on the pro circuit are carving up much smaller waves and pulling in huge paychecks through sponsorships and contest winnings.

“It’s hard to predict what’s going to come out of it, but they say they guarantee a winner,” says Evan Slater, a popular big-wave rider from Encinitas.

That’s more than can be said about the Quicksilver, or Eddie Aikau contest at Waimea Bay, whose organizers guarantee a $50,000 purse but don’t always hold a contest because it has to be at least 20 feet (measured from the back), and Waimea doesn’t always reach 20 feet.

The obvious concern with the K2 Challenge is that it is free of charge and open to anyone, which means some surfer with plenty of guts but not nearly enough brains or experience might decide it’s worth risking getting pummeled for a shot at $50,000.

Contest director Sharp says he gave this issue a lot of thought, then decided to proceed anyway.

“I don’t think this will compel anyone to do something crazy,” he says. “One thing you have to remember is that you have to ride the wave successfully; it’s a contest of skill and not just bravado.

“A lot of people can paddle out and put themselves in harm’s way, but you have to ride this wave to its completion to be considered in the contest. And people who know how to ride really big waves have surfed and been around the ocean all their lives . . . and you could probably fit them all in a small motor home.”

Just the same, since anyone can enter, attorneys at K2 have produced a lengthy release-of-liability form contestants must sign to be part of this gig.

Photographs of the person riding the biggest wave between now and March 15 will be studied by a panel of surf magazine editors, photographers and big-wave riders who will determine the winner “at a comfortable location where they will be served adequate quantities of pizza and beer.”

Jeff Divine, photo editor for Surfer magazine, has been invited to be one of the judges and says he has no problem with the contest.

“If there was no contest, these guys would still be out there,” he says. “Now somebody’s going to make 50 grand. I don’t think this is going to rev up people [with no big-wave experience] to go out and try to catch a 20-foot wave. I do think it will rev up the experienced surfers to get a photographer to go out there with him on a jet-ski or whatever, because that’s their only chance.”

Feeling lucky? Call (714) 646-1405 for details. Or check out Collins’ web site at www.surfline.com. Collins expects to have a section on the contest in a few days and hopes to include updates and photos “so people can see where they stand.”

A LITTLE PERSPECTIVE

Those hoping to make a run for the money down a moving mountain in front of an avalanche of whitewater might want to consider a few things before finding themselves in over their heads.

The waves at Mavericks are so powerful that if you suffer a wipeout, you had better have good lungs--the first wave in a set has been known to keep surfers from getting to the surface before the second wave breaks.

Hawaii’s Mark Foo, an expert big-wave surfer, wiped out at Mavericks a few years ago and never came up. His board was eventually located down the beach by another surfer, who followed the leash down to Foo’s body.

At Waimea Bay last winter, surfer Todd Chesser got caught inside and tried to dive under a breaking 20-foot-plus wave. It held him under beyond what he was capable of surviving. His death came a year after that of Ventura’s Donnie Solomon at Waimea. Solomon died a year to the day after Foo did.

“For some of these guys, it seems like a death-wish thing,” Collins says.

MONSTER MAVERICKS

Slater has been all over the world surfing big waves, but believes the contest will be won in California, at Mavericks, a remote, deep-water break half a mile offshore near Half Moon Bay.

Long a secret spot, Mavericks was discovered by the surfing masses only recently and gained widespread notoriety a few years ago when Foo’s death sent shock waves throughout the surfing community.

“My money’s on Mavericks because it shows its size better than Waimea in a photograph, and Waimea is not always as big to begin with,” Slater says. “The water shots at Waimea may look only 10 feet, but the wave will really be 15-18 feet. Plus, Mavericks is a much heavier wave. The only problem is, you have to make the wave to win the contest and at Mavericks that doesn’t happen as much.”

TAKE IT TO THE BANK

Collins, who tracks storm systems and swells around the world from his oceanfront office in Huntington Beach, agrees that Mavericks probably will produce the contest-winning wave.

But if he were competing for the $50,000, he would wait for a big north or northwest swell and head for Tanner Bank, a popular fishing spot about 30 miles west of San Clemente Island.

“That bank is only six feet beneath the surface and there are just huge swells that break over it, with faces that are easily 35-40 feet,” Collins says. “If somebody paddles out there, he’ll win the contest.”

Provided, of course, he lives to tell about it.