Big Thursday was a thing.
The World Surf League proved prudent in not holding its first Mavericks Challenge big wave contest Monday or Tuesday. Waves broke at the spot near Half Moon Bay’s Pillar Point Harbor, but not of the size or quality sought by the WSL, which has set a contest standard of 30-foot faces or larger.
On Thursday, though, the spot was rocking, as were the boats and skis that followed the surfers brave, or crazy, enough to paddle out to the break, including a few the 30 who have been invited to compete in the $130,000 contest.
“What was going on this morning, I’ve only seen it in that range maybe two or three times before,” Santa Cruz’s Peter Mel, an invitee and former Maverick’s contest champion who has more than two decades of experience surfing the spot, told the WSL. He paddled out Thursday morning with his son John Mel, a professional surfer on the WSL Qualifying Tour. “It looks like a national monument at that size. It’s like checking out Niagara Falls.”
While the waves had girth, though, they were accompanied by dangerous south winds and strong currents. One rogue wave took out a boat and another wave claimed a personal water craft.
Boat captain Andrew Dorn, who has extensive experience around Maverick’s, had delivered surfers Lucas Chianca, Ben Andrews, and Carlos Burlé to the break. His boat was carrying only Dorn and a photographer Thursday morning when a massive wave swung wide and caught the ship inside. It flipped the boat and carried it to Blackhand Reef to the south. According to the WSL, the two men were rescued from the water by Frank Quirarte, a well-known Maverick’s photographer, and Todd Turner of Half Moon Bay, who were driving skis.
Quirarte later ran into trouble of his own, however, when he drove in to check on Chianca, who had returned to the wrecked boat to salvage some of his belongings. Quirarte’s ski got mired in some of the boat debris, clogging its intake valve. He said surfer Luca Padua, 16, of El Granada tried to help pull the ski free, but they eventually had to bail on it and save themselves.
“The next thing you know there was a huge set coming and we had to get out of there,” Quirarte told the WSL. “We scuttled the ski … and then just watched it get destroyed.”
Quirarte said the damage was minimal considering what it could have been.
“Everything we lost is replaceable,” he said. “It could have been much, much worse.”
For Chianca, at least, the risk of paddling out wasn’t without reward. He was one of the few surfers to find a surfable wave and harness it during the massive morning session. More surfers found rides later in the day, after the swell dropped.