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Laird Hamilton is the one of the most well-rounded waterman in the world. He’s mastered every aspect of waveriding and is now bringing a whole new faction of big wave surfing to the forefront. He takes his innovations beyond the realm of what most even dream of, and then he makes them a reality. With a solid background of surf heritage, he was destined for greatness from the start. Falling in a barrel of resin at age four, didn’t deter him from following his natural path. However, the resin bath did convince him that shaping wasn’t his gig, so he...

Nobody embodies the ideal of a pure waterman quite like Laird Hamilton. His life began as it should’ve, in the water. Laird’s mother gave birth to him in a bathysphere, ensuring that the first experience he had in this world would be aquatic. Nobody embodies the ideal of a pure waterman quite like Laird Hamilton. His life began as it should’ve, in the water. Laird’s mother gave birth to him in a bathysphere, ensuring that the first experience he had in this world would be aquatic. Even people that know little about surfing still know the iconic big wave madman,...

Laird Hamilton is as tech savvy as surfers get. He knows that the gear that takes him into danger also helps him out of it. Here's a harrowing tale of surfing terror and the jet ski that saved a life: The most commonly asked question I get is, what was the scariest wave I ever took? I used to get rescued probably three or four times a week when I was a kid, before I was five or six years old. I was known to be lost at sea, out in the ocean. The lifeguard used to come to my...

Laird Hamilton is as tech savvy as surfers get. Here he discusses his part in pioneering the latest surfing techniques, such as jet-ski tow-in surfing, hydrofoil boards and kite boarding: I've been involved in the conception of a few different activities or disciplines of surfing, however you want to describe them: Foil boarding, kite-surfing, stand-up paddling most recently, and then of course tow-in surfing, which kind of allows us to ride some of the biggest waves in the world. Stand-Up Paddling I don't describe them as inventions, but really as a combination of a couple things that together created a...

Laird Hamilton is as tech savvy as surfers get. Here he looks at the shapes and materials that make boards great—what's changed over the years, and what hasn't: With the advent of foam and fiberglass and now carbon fiber, surfboard design and technology have come a long way in the last 30 years. Some of the sports that benefited from that technology were obviously wind surfing and tow surfing. For tow surfing, we changed the design of the boards. Normally in conventional prone surfing, to ride a giant wave you need a huge board. What we did was because we...