Despite all the hoopla and festival crowds, it all came down to a small pack of board riders - friends, alone in the ocean. After spending the morning fighting to get the final - and a chance at a $30,000 payday - the surfers decided to call off the competition.
"We paddled out and 10 minutes went by and there were no waves," said Tyler Smith, who would place fourth in his fourth Mavericks contest after chasing down more than his share of steep but mid-sized waves to reach the final heat of six.
 Jamie Sterling, who finished third in the competition, drops in on the biggest wave of the day in the finals. |
"I could swear it was Greg's idea," said Smith.
Greg is Greg Long of San Clemente. He is one of the roaring young lions of the sport, having finished second at Mavericks in 2005. He is a world traveler who has already won big-name big-wave contests elsewhere.
As soon as the competition was off - the final was on.
"Five minutes passed and a 20-foot set came," said Smith. "I think that almost kind of encouraged the waves to come. We showed it wasn't about the money and we got to have a real final."
This year's contest was well attended on land. A San Mateo County Sheriff's release estimated the crowd at 50,000, but no one was counting. Spectators lined every vantage point along the bluffs on Pillar Point and packed the beach. Organizers said about 1,000 people paid as much as $25 to watch the event live at AT&T Park in San Francisco. Mavericks Surf Ventures CEO Keir Beadling said that 250,000 people logged on to a free, live Web cast as well.
Long didn't quite take responsibility for sharing the purse, allowing only that "someone threw it out there and everyone was stoked." But several of the competitors had been through it with him before.
Long won the Big Wave Africa Contest several years ago after he suggested sharing that prize.
It was a slow final in Durban, South Africa, that year. And like Saturday at Mavericks, the prize became secondary to the camaraderie.
"Do we really want to choose a winner like this?" said Long of Saturday's slow start to the final. "It really kind of took the edge off everybody at that point. It was just screaming and shouting and cheering each other on."
That kind of atmosphere, all but unheard of at the top levels of international competition in other sports, is traditional at the Mavericks contest. That gift is partly due to Jay Moriarty, a young Santa Cruz surfer who excelled at the break and died at age 22 in a free diving accident in the Maldives. Jamie Sterling won this year's Jay Moriarty Award for spirit and sportsmanship, a quality Moriarty exemplified.
"Jay was a 15-year-old kid that we watched paddle out," said Jeff Clark, founder of the Mavericks contest and a frequent surfing partner of Moriarty's, before choking up on the victory podium. "Jamie's always shown up in the lineup - all good - all go," said Clark.
All in all, it was a banner weekend for big-wave surfers.
The Nelscott Reef Tow-In Classic ran on Friday and Sunday in perfect 40-foot surf off the coast of Oregon. Several Mavericks contestants had been on their way to Oregon when Clark made his contest call. Others were invited to the Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau on Oahu, which was on high alert to run the next day. Some quick plane rides ensued after Mavericks, but the Eddie is still on hold.
While the relatively small waves on display at Mavericks this year seemed to favor a hard-charging approach, Mavericks at 20 feet is still a graveyard for the rash.
Evan Slater placed sixth and scored some of the worst wipeouts of the day, but contest veteran and Mavericks regular Grant Washburn was fifth with an "older guy's" strategy.
"I only roll the dice when I'm sure I've got a good entry and a really good chance of making it," said Washburn. "And I hate to say it; I had no close calls and no heavy wipeouts. That was my game plan because I know I'm not going to recover from it."
Long had his own take on his bold, and ultimately generous, win.
"I paddled and I sat and the waves came to me," said Long. "Everyone always says the day always gravitates toward one particular person - and it was me.
"And I still can't believe it," he said when the surfing was done. "I'm still in shock."
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