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FHM
August 2005
Q&A: THE BIG WAVE SURFER
Ken Bradshaw on taming 85-foot waves, holding his breath and chewing on boards
By Andrew Vontz
What's the biggest wave you've ever surfed?
On January 28, 1998, I rode a wave with an 85-foot face. It was at an outer reef called Outside Log Cabins on the North Shore of Oahu in Hawaii. Some people have called it the biggest wave ever surfed.
What does riding a wave that big feel like?
With a wave that big, the feeling of dropping down the face of it is not as big a deal as the utter sensation of speed. A wave that big travels at 50 mph; a surfable head-high wave you see at the beach travels at between six and eight mph. The size of these waves defies comprehension, too. Feet become an obsolete measurement. When you speed down to the bottom of an 85-foot face and look up to turn, it's like being confronted by a six-story building of water. One turn on that wave meant traveling the distance of a city block. As an experience, it's fantastic.
What if you wipeout?
I've been overtaken by waves with 60-foot faces, not an 85-footer. The pressure is incredible. Years ago I did G-force training on a centrifuge, and being spun around by a wave that big feels like being subjected to 6Gs. I've been held under the water by waves for a minute. The worst part of being under that long is seeing other waves breaking on the surface and forcing yourself to stay down before it's safe to come up.
It's not for everyone, then.
No. I hate to sound pretentious but less people have ridden waves this big than people have walked on the moon.
How do you catch a wave like that?
You can't paddle onto it like a normal-sized wave because it's moving at such an incredible speed. In surfing, you have to match the speed of a wave as you catch it. Years ago, I would have to paddle for 45 minutes to get to these waves. I'd lose my board in the surf and have to swim all the way back to shore. Then, in the early '90s, I helped develop tow-in surfing. The surfer waterskiis behind a Jet Ski at up to 50 mph; when the wave develops, you let go of the rope and surf like you never have before.
What's been your worst injury?
Lacerations are common. I've had over 200 stitches, mostly from surfboards getting loose and flying around in the surf. I've lost over 100 boards. In 1990, the nose of a loose board pierced my butt cheek, went through three and a half inches of muscle and hit my pelvic girdle. I swam back to the beach and was out of the water for six weeks. This February, I lacerated my wrist. I was at Sunset Beach, surfing on a wave behind this guy when, whether through incompetence or fear, his board shot between his legs and into me.
Did you put the Spicolli in his place?
Sure. I knocked the fins off his board-without his fins, he's out of the water.
How old are you?
I'm 52, but he could have killed me. It can get aggressive out there jostling for waves. On a big day, the surf is packed. It's like 250 people turning up to a golf course and all wanting to tee off at the exact same time. Coming up in surfing, the Hawaiians called me the Great White Moke. A Moke is a Hawaiian thug. Punching was a common way to enforce discipline in the surf, but if someone transgressed my space, I'd bite a chunk out of his board and spit it back at him.
How do you train to surf waves this big?
For safety, you need to be conditioned to swim in the open ocean. Swimming, freediving and carrying a rock underwater to build that up helps, but lava-tube diving is more intense. In Hawaii, we have underwater lava tunnels that have been eroded with time. They can be 30 feet below the surface and they can take 90 seconds to swim through. When you can spend two hours, diving down, through a lava tube and back up to the surface, you're good.
Do you ever get scared surfing?
No. I'm not afraid of anything. I have a healthy respect for things of high risk, though.
What about being buried alive?
I've never been buried alive, but I imagine I'd be okay with it.
Have you ever had to fight a shark?
I've seen 15-foot sharks in the water, but I don't carry a knife when I surf. I've strangled a pitbull, though. It had another smaller dog in its mouth, so I held on until it passed out.
Are you able to use your big-wave skills out of the water?
When I go to Costco and get stuck way out in the parking lot, I jump on one of their giant grocery carts and ride that down to the entrance. I can get it up to about 10 mph.
Can you surf a tsunami?
No. A tsunami moves up to 500 mph through the ocean. You can't catch those waves, but tow-in surfing will progress and people will continue to surf bigger and bigger waves.
The development of tow-in surfing was a huge step forward, like Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier. Surfing waves with 100-foot faces are the next barrier.
Where do you find waves that big?
Most of the accessible places where big waves break are already identified and people in the sport track them using forecasting systems. But there's still a lot of unchartered territory out there where we could find 100-foot faces. The Seaside Lighthouse on the Oregon coast stands at 135 feet. In 1998, a wave went straight over the top of it. The question isn't if mother nature will deliver, it's when. FHM
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What is tow in surfing?
You water ski on a surfboard holding onto a tow rope behind a jet ski and track down a large wave and track its speed as it develops into a surfable wave, let go of the rope and you start surfing. They’re a half mile to a mile and a half offshore. Less people have ridden waves this big than people have walked on the moon. That should tell you that it’s pretty much as on the edge as being an astronaut.
So normal surfing is like driving a pickup truck and tow-in surfing is like crushing cars with Big Foot?
It’d be more like if you had a downhill go-kart compared to a monster truck. You can go as fast as 45 miles per hour. A paddling surfer goes 6 miles per hour to 8 miles per hour. 1993 was the first year we towed in.
You set a world record by riding an 85-foot wave in 1998. What does it feel like to step into 85 feet of powerfully streaming liquid?
It’s a fairly normal feeling. A forty-five foot face is nothing. It’s when it gets to the 65-foot faces that it’s a different deal. The feeling of down isn’t as great as the feeling of speed. An 80-foot wave is a minimum of three two-story buildings. You look out ahead of you and it’s a half mile ahead of you.
Cowabunga. Have you had any bad wipeouts?
I’ve been overtaken by some 30 foot waves. The worst holdout I ever had was when we were trying to outrun a wave with a personal watercraft. I’m on the rope being towed behind it so I sacrificed myself to save the boat and let go of the rope. I was under for almost a minute. I got to go into a centrifuge and pulled 9 G’s on a TV show I did called Extreme Survival. It’s about like 9 G’s being spun around because the pressure’s so great.
Do the jet skis ever get wrecked in the waves?
They’re never really nasty. They’re quite fun. At home at Phantoms on the North Shore I was training two women and one of them kept falling and getting in the impact zone and I had my girlfriend on my back because she was training, too. Rather than let this girl take another hit on the head I thought I should recover her. I could have done it had she been better at being recovered and plus I had someone on my back. I went around her head and picked her up—you do left hand to left hand and throw them on the sled. I’m accelerating and the white water overtakes her and she got pushed sideways off the sled which threw me into a side slide. We got hit and I end up going upside down and over the falls in my boat. My girlfriend hung on—what a trooper!
How much does it cost?
It’s a very expensive sport. Your daily outlay of money would be a minimum of $40 for fuel and oil. A cheap 4-stroke watercraft would be $8,500. You need an $800 trailer, a $1,000 beach dolly, you need surfboards and they’re $1,000. You need ropes, safety equipment, a transmitter, and bow lines. You’re looking at a $20,000 investment. Australia, Peru, Brazil, France, South Africa all have between 50 and 100 teams actively doing this. Over 2,000 people are doing it now and it started with four guys.
What do you do on an average day of training?
You start with swimming for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then you do some freediving and underwater rock carrying or lava tube diving.
And you’re not talking about a Hawaiian hooker, right?
No, it’s an underwater lava tube tunnel. They’re from fifteen seconds to ninety seconds. You have to go down twenty feet or thirty feet to get to the tunnel and then you go through the tunnel and come back up. You can spend a couple of hours doing that. You spend two hours doing rock running underwater or lava tubing—you’re done!
Have you ever had to beat any Spiccoli’s down?
It gets very competitive in the water for waves. It’s not like skiing or snowboarding or bicycling or tennis or golf. Imagine if everybody in the golf course had to go up to the first tee and all 250 people want to tee off at the same time and you only get one chance. That’s kind of like trying to catch a wave. It gets really aggressive. If you go far enough back you can find that I have a nickname, the Great White Moke. A Moke is a Hawaiian thug. I’ve bitten surfboards. I would take chunks out of surfboards and spit it back at the guy to make it clear that they’d transgressed on my space.
What injuries have you had during your career?
My count is over 200 stitches, mostly from loose surfboards. I’ve gotten the nose of a surfboard in my butt cheek that actually hit my pelvic girdle through three and a half inches of muscle. I used to paddle out to these outer reefs by myself even to try to surf these waves all through the mid 80’s and late 80’s. It’d take as much as 45 minutes to paddle out and swimming in would take an hour and a half because usually you’d lose your board out there. I guarantee tow surfing is safer than what I was doing.
Does anything scare you?
I’m not afraid of anything. I’m kind of cautious. I have a healthy respect for things of high risk to the point I would avoid them. As far as basic phobias I can pick up any snake or spider.
How about being buried alive—would you be cool with that?
I’ve never been buried alive but I can imagine I’d be okay. I’ve never done it but let’s try.
Do any of your tow-in surfing skills apply in real life?
Every time I go to Costco I jump on one of those giant carts and ride it all the way to the building.
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