January 14, 2008
2007 2008 Mavericks Surf Contest: Special Wipeout Coverage
No surfers, including Darryl Flea Virostko, were harmed during the making of this photo gallery. Larger version of this shot here
The other entry featuring photos of Saturday's surf competition is here. Wipeouts only is the theme of this particular entry. Seven more shots, after the jump.
Larger photos here
When you fall down surfing big waves, you might go straight into the water, or you might skim along the top, or you might skip along on your back like a stone.
This is the same surfer a half second later just bouncing along.
It's human nature to put your hand down to brace a fall, but it doesn't really help Ion Banner in this case here.
Competitors never know when the next set will come in, so they need to be aggressive.
Ross Clarke-Jones of Australia and 6.5 foot tall local Ryan Seelbach shown about a second or two after this shot from the LA Times
Ross Clarke-Jones again. He showed a lot of spunk out there. Good on him, mate.
South African Grant Baker probably got in the most hang time -- almost a full second in the air. He was still flying 3/8 of second later as seen here
Stay safe and have fun. See you next year!
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Awesome shots, Jim. I thought that first one of Flea going down backwards was the bail of the day. That guy is indestructible. In the massive swell back in December he got pounded going over the falls of a 60 footer. See this video at about 1:35. You can't see him very well, but the camera man's "oh no. oh no! OH NO!" tells the story:
http://www.surfline.com/video/video_player/video_player.cfm?id=12653&mv=ncl
pictures here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/11/MN4ITQULT.DTL
Fantastic Shots!
The Fat Boys' version was better.