Brock Little - January 21st, 1990

Stu Nettle picture
Stu Nettle (stunet)
The Rearview Mirror

2_4.jpgIn surfing, as in most physical endeavours, the boundaries of performance creep, rather than rush, forward. Just as Olympic world records are ticked off by mere hundredths of a second, so too are the criteria for surfing - higher, faster, deeper - broken in increments.

The exception to this rule occurred over the course of one hour in January 1990.

The second instalment of the Eddie Aikau Invitational had been waiting for three years to run. Poor North Shore seasons meant the swell stayed below the minimum size requirements during the allotted waiting periods for the competition. On the 21st January, however, a huge low pressure system in the north-west Pacific generated waves of a size not seen in many years - the Eddie was on.

During his second heat of the day, Brock Little, just 21 years old and already one of the best at Waimea, caught two waves that blew the ceiling off big wave surfing performance. Five minutes after the heat began he paddled into what was considered the largest wave ever attempted (although he didn't make it) and thirty minutes later he caught the largest barrel ever ridden.

That it happened at the most famous big wave spot in Hawaii, during the most anticipated contest in the world and in full view of his peers meant that there was no argument or conjecture. The consensus was unanimous, Little had done what no person had yet done, and his reputation as a big wave hellman went through the stratosphere (despite the impact of those two waves Little didn't win the contest, coming second to Keone Downing).

4_1.jpgIt was Little's second wave, the barrel, that was considered his crowning achievement. However, it wasn't long before far larger barrels were getting ridden on a regular basis.

Just one year later Laird Hamilton, Buzzy Kerbox and Darrick Doerner began towing each other behind a Zodiac inflatable boat at Backyards. Their experiment would lead them to tow surfing and it would allow huge waves to be ridden - far bigger than ever thought possible. Within ten years Little's two waves - the largest wave attempted and the largest barrel ridden - were eclipsed. Albeit with the aide of tow rope and engine.

With tow surfing came shorter boards and a whole new mindset: new thoughts on board design, new waves to seek out, and new ways to ride them. The influx of ideas began flowing backward and influencing paddle surfing as waves such as Shipstern Bluff and Teahupoo were paddled into and huge barrels ridden under human steam. The dimensions of Little's Waimea barrel no longer seemed so extraordinary.

When it comes to height, however, Little's first wave in that monumental heat stands tall even now, twenty years on. It is a wave that is still considered a genuine contender when discussion of the largest wave ever paddled into comes up. And it is evidence also that the drop is the great leveller of big wave paddle surfing.

(Photo Mathews)

Comments

stunet's picture
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stunet Tuesday, 21 Jan 2014 at 8:34am

It's 24 years ago today that Brock Little caught what was then considered the largest wave paddled into. How did it compare against the wave Jamie Mitchell paddled into at Belharra just a fortnight ago? Check this clip from the Encyclopedia of Surfing for comparison:

There are two things we can be certain of: the explosion on Brock's wave is way bigger, and the result of both waves was the same.

stunet's picture
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stunet Tuesday, 21 Jan 2014 at 9:19am

And while we're talking big Wammy the Eddie Aikau is on hold for Wednesday: https://www.swellnet.com/news/swellnet-dispatch/2014/01/21/organisers-mo...

derra83's picture
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derra83 Tuesday, 21 Jan 2014 at 11:10am

Mitchells wave was bigger but the water perspective adds size so it's hard to say by how much. At a pinch I'd say it's only about 5-10 feet bigger. Paddle surfing is progressing slowly judging by the two waves.

kneepete's picture
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kneepete Tuesday, 21 Jan 2014 at 11:51am

Amazing how different the wave looks between the photo and the video. Waimea is such a big, ugly wave. Just a huge piece of junk

caml's picture
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caml Tuesday, 21 Jan 2014 at 1:12pm

For many years 25ft was the mark that had been tackled but nobody went beyond there. In last few yrs its been raised. Dorian at jaws. Dollar at cortes. Guys like twig, long, healey. More also no doubt have gone beyond waimeas max size

grog-an's picture
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grog-an Tuesday, 21 Jan 2014 at 5:27pm

Hawaii '90. Great vid of its time. Awesome soundtrack.
Edit: not the clip above, but the waimea footage

gavin007's picture
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gavin007 Tuesday, 21 Jan 2014 at 9:35pm

Give me paddle in surfing any day! If there is one thing that annoys me it's when editors cut the take off and drop from a video. To me, the paddle in, get to feet ,drop and that first turn are the most important part of any ride. It sets up the rest.

munkima's picture
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munkima Wednesday, 22 Jan 2014 at 1:17pm

I couldn't help myself and did up a photoshop side by side comparison. Mitchell's is a smidgin bigger. Both are roughly 8 times overhead, ~25ft waves. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24554983/LittleVsMitchell.jpg

Craig's picture
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Craig Wednesday, 22 Jan 2014 at 1:31pm

And on that comparison, Brock is a lot closer to the camera and bigger than Jamie, I think if you adjusted the photo size to match their body sized, Jamie's would be bigger again.

brutus's picture
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brutus Wednesday, 22 Jan 2014 at 4:18pm

hey the equipment ridden by Brock and what is on offer today should be taken into consideration......no inflatable vests ,a first is always what sets the bar for the next level.....I was there this day and what Brock did was mind blowing....

what Laird did at Chopes was mindblowing.....pioneering and being the first is what really counts.....

stunet's picture
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stunet Wednesday, 22 Jan 2014 at 4:26pm

brutus wrote:

hey the equipment ridden by Brock and what is on offer today should be taken into consideration......no inflatable vests.

Good point Brutus and kinda overlooked/forgotten in this era of ubiquitous safety measures. 

I love watching the video of that wave, especially the piece of footage when he paddles back into the lineup throwing air punches and is clearly buzzing out of his head. Not scared, not relieved, just straight up pumped to get another one...which he promptly did and got pitted.

Fuck, to have watched that live...

caml's picture
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caml Wednesday, 22 Jan 2014 at 4:22pm

waimea closes out when its 25-30ft . guys are riding surf at these 'new' breaks that are beyond the size realm of waimea. sometimes pictures don't do a wave justice and you have to actually know the period and swell size, plus the bathymetry of the break to have more knowledge of how big the wave is. jamies wave is possibly the biggest attempt ever by anyone . brocks attempt was surpassed a very long time ago and so was greg nolls .

brutus's picture
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brutus Wednesday, 22 Jan 2014 at 4:36pm

yeah Stu...the whole beach just erupted .....everyone was just buzzing.......everyone wanted to get barreled.......

yeah caml.....waves are bigger now some of the Jaws stuff is mindblowing...jamies wave was insane but comparing Bela to Jaws.......hmm that's a stretch......but who cares, a barrel by RCJ years ago at Jaws where he actually tried to get a double barrel and hit the bottom.....the stories are incredible ......love them all.....

can you even imagine what greg nolls bd was like???

caml's picture
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caml Wednesday, 22 Jan 2014 at 6:07pm

of course, all due respect to brock and greg noll . but that's progress and we all are seeing it in our lifetimes . M C good to hear from you, hope your well and that fin you gave me did improve the case board performance, thanks again. wasn't saying that belharra compares to jaws but he was surfing with dorian and twig and he got the biggest thing . the actual drop he faced and fact he had to paddle in and get to his feet was another increment in raising the bar I think. although he didn't make it ,I think Jamie is going to do some charging in the years ahead.

brutus's picture
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brutus Thursday, 23 Jan 2014 at 2:34am

totally agree caml.......I just looked at the buoys in Hawaii,still building,but there a have been some 28' @ 19 seconds...shit that's close outs at the bay,I think that 20sec 20 feet is perfect for 25' Bay.......

...and there will be places that ....ah....well serious Gonad testers MM"s left for Mauii last nite......bummer about the winds but ......lets hope everyone has a great day and survives.......should be some interesting shot and storys come out of the next 2 days....pray all will be safe!!!!!

great to see that fin helped.....

udo's picture
udo's picture
udo Saturday, 20 Dec 2014 at 4:23pm

A short clip on vimeo : James Jones surfing.
Pulling in at the Bay on a big single fin.

peterb's picture
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peterb Saturday, 20 Dec 2014 at 9:08pm

'The drop is the great leveller in big wave surfing.' What Stu is really saying here, is that only a surfer knows 'that' feeling. Nice words mate.

evosurfer's picture
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evosurfer Sunday, 21 Dec 2014 at 10:24am

I fully agree with you udo I also remember James Jones pulling into Waimea bay
hell pit in the 70s on a single fin I have it on video pretty much started the revolution of just pulling in on massive close outs around my area. Funny how people forget such things. No disrespect for Brock Little thou as I named my 1st child Brock after him.

udo's picture
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udo Sunday, 21 Dec 2014 at 10:36am

Evo, can you post your vid up? The spray on JJs board in the vimeo vid that's same as Horans sprays ?

evosurfer's picture
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evosurfer Sunday, 21 Dec 2014 at 11:20am

My video is now broken so I don't know what movie it was on and cant check. But
its true.

uplift's picture
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uplift Sunday, 21 Dec 2014 at 12:11pm

Yeh, Booby Jones wrote great, in depth articles too. At one stage he was the focus of all the magazines, as he described his mission to tube ride, and surf the biggest waimea etc, like small waves. He pefected not having to drop straight down, perfected being able too hook his rail in, getting up onto the face straight away and being able to manouvre. He was strong off the bottom too. His design/shaping/boards ideas, training, nutrition, everything, were a focal point for a while. I think his board label was Arena or something like that.

udo's picture
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udo Sunday, 21 Dec 2014 at 8:20pm

.

uplift's picture
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uplift Sunday, 21 Dec 2014 at 12:22pm

No, I didn't know that he did. But what a fucking legend. No skis, no hi tech rescue gear, no rescuers, no one to copy or follow, just had to be a focused machine.

uplift's picture
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uplift Sunday, 21 Dec 2014 at 12:37pm

Like Jose Angel. He would just go swimming in massive surf, to be sure he could swim around all day to get in miles down the coast if he had to. Then there was his free diving stunts. Like a guy in Lincoln.

http://www.freedive.net/feature/pickering_record.htm

https://www.facebook.com/adreno.spearfish/posts/10153332182615621

Fordy, a bit of a charging and diving legend himself told me a classic story when Pickering rang him up to do a bit of spearing one morning. He reckons they just started swimming out to sea and when they were miles out, and still going, Pickering did a few forays dissappearing down into the depths. Fordy cracked and thought fuck this shit, and bolted back to the beach, shitting himself the whole way. He reckons Pickering spent all day out there somewhere, and came back in in the arvo.

udo's picture
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udo Sunday, 21 Dec 2014 at 12:48pm

Jones was only a little chap 5'6 and 63kgs.

caml's picture
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caml Sunday, 21 Dec 2014 at 12:49pm

pickering would be the guy who been attacked twice by shark & lived ? . i have a ' tuberider ' surfboard by james jones 8"2 it was incredible board for launchingpadspeedreef .

uplift's picture
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uplift Sunday, 21 Dec 2014 at 1:00pm

Yeh, thats him Camel. And Jones put a lot of effort into perfecting his boards, you would have got on well.

And yeh Udo, but he outlined training hard to be stronger. And I would love to see the bigger, stronger version of Jones. Its a bit like all the talk in heavyweight boxing though now. The very best athletes are no longer attracted, and are lost to other sports. PPV is suffering. But, no substitute for the mind/attitude and skill, it has to be a total package, like Jones and others.

udo's picture
udo's picture
udo Sunday, 21 Dec 2014 at 1:07pm

Caml ,do you know if J James is alive or deceased ?

brutus's picture
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brutus Sunday, 21 Dec 2014 at 7:17pm

hey guys..James "Booby " Jones is still alive and well...he still lives and surfs on the Nth Shore..was sponsored by Arena and makes Tuberider s/bds.......he was alos a switchfoot and a chareger ..very quiet humble guy...great surfer

udo's picture
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udo Sunday, 21 Dec 2014 at 7:50pm

Thanks Brutus.