Laird Hamilton says he learned to swim as a child at what he calls the most dangerous beach in the world.
“We moved to the most dangerous beach in the world, and and I that I learned how to swim, uh, at the most dangerous beach in the world.”
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Laird Hamilton
1 episodes · 18 quoted claims
Laird Hamilton says his mother started the first helicopter touring company in Hawaii with help from a friend who was a Vietnam veteran.
“And so she started going to work and eventually started the first helicopter company, um, in Hawaii that toured, cause she had a friend that was a Vietnam vet”
Laird Hamilton says an early job driving inflatable boats like those used by Navy SEALs gave him the driving skills for early tow-in surfing, and a friend had the same experience.
“So I knew how to drive, and I had another friend that had the same experience.”
Laird Hamilton says he did stand-up paddling for eight years before anybody else did it.
“I did stand up paddling for eight years before anybody ever did it”
Laird Hamilton says tow-in surfing was criticised and not respected for roughly eight to ten years before the Tahiti ride.
“the truth is that Towing was really not respected. People were were kind of slandering it for a good solid eight to ten years.”
Laird Hamilton says he cried after the Tahiti session and was thirty-five at the time.
“I cried after after that, that session. I had tears in my eyes just because it had been, and that was when I was thirty-five.”
Laird Hamilton compares the effect of his Tahiti ride to the breaking of the four-minute mile, saying it changed how people thought about what was possible.
“And then, I mean, I describe it a little bit like the four-minute mile. After that, once they understood what was possible, it changed the whole thinking.”
Laird Hamilton says early big-wave riders did not wear flotation devices, and flotation is now standard.
“In the beginning, we didn't wear flotation devices. Now, all big wave riding, everybody's wearing flotation, right?”
Laird Hamilton says his only two-wave hold-down happened while foiling in giant surf in the early days of the sport.
“I've been held down two waves one time, and it was, uh, it was foiling, and in the early days of foiling, we were doing, we were riding, foiling in giant surf”
Laird Hamilton says that in very large surf a two-wave hold-down lasts more than a minute, because the waves are spaced farther apart.
“So if you're doing a two wave hold down, you're gonna be down for more than a minute.”
Laird Hamilton says he estimated the waves at 80 to 100 feet by counting four to five seconds for the lip to fall.
“The waves were taking four to five seconds for the lip to fall, so it was one one thousand, two, one thousand, three, one thousand, four, one thousand, five before they hit.”
Laird Hamilton says surfers hit a limit in paddling, created towing, hit a limit in towing, and then created foiling.
“First, we hit a ceiling in paddling, then we created towing, then we hit a ceiling in towing, then we created foiling.”
Laird Hamilton says recent findings link the microbiomes of surfers worldwide to those of water mammals.
“we just learned recently that the surf surfers microbiome actually are v- v- very closely tied to water mammals.”
Laird Hamilton describes Drake's Passage, near Cape Horn, as a place where many ships have sunk and where he hopes to ride huge open-ocean waves.
“There's a famous passage called Drake's Passage, and it's it's where a lot of ships sink.”
Laird Hamilton says people approach dangerous activities through denial, ignorance or experience, usually in some mix.
“I always say there's three ways people go about doing dangerous stuff. There's denial, ignorance and skill, or experience, should I say, so you have denial, ignorance and experience.”
Laird Hamilton says he has towed with the same partner for twenty to twenty-five years.
“I have somebody that I've been towing with for, you know, twenty, twenty-five years.”
Laird Hamilton says he once built a prototype safety device from a hippity hop ball with a waist belt and a CO2 bottle, and it did not work well.
“I had one of those as a prototype and with a waist belt, and I had a fanny pack, and then had a CO2 bottle.”
Laird Hamilton says modern jet skis reach about sixty miles an hour, while older ones barely reached twenty.
“now the jet skis are s, you know, sixty miles an hour out of a box, and they used to be, you know, you'd be lucky to get twenty out of them”