1:14:00
And the reason for the size
of the boards was to catch the wave.
1:14:04
Once you were in, you didn't need
a big board, you were fine.
1:14:08
We didn't visualize what actually
was gonna take place...
1:14:12
...until we went snowboarding.
1:14:16
And if we could ride
these giant mountains...
1:14:19
...on this tiny little board...
1:14:21
...well, why couldn't we
do that surfing?
1:14:25
Aided by renowned board-builders
Dick Brewer, Billy Hamilton...
1:14:28
... and Gerry Lopez...
1:14:30
...the trio chopped their boards
by three feet.
1:14:33
Then, drawing inspiration from
windsurfing and snowboarding...
1:14:36
... they strapped themselves
to their boards...
1:14:39
... providing control in the heightened
speed and turbulence...
1:14:42
... of riding waves over 30 feet.
1:14:45
The small board was really
the big breakthrough.
1:14:48
I think that's really
where we shifted gears.
1:14:50
All of a sudden,
now we really had the speed.
1:14:53
The liberation
of paddling by motor...
1:14:55
... suddenly opened up
big-wave surfing's next frontier.
1:14:58
Now it seemed
that riding any wave...
1:15:01
...breaking anywhere, at any size,
was possible.
1:15:05
Then came the idea...
1:15:08
...of this thing on Maui...
1:15:10
...where Gerry sat down
with Laird and said:
1:15:13
"I got something
you might wanna see."
1:15:15
When he understood
what we had going...
1:15:18
...he was like: "Hey," you know,
"young man, come over here.
1:15:21
I got something to show you."