Taj Burrow sits in the backseat of a Toyota Kijang with his best mates Stamos and Sponnas. They rifle through bags of McDonalds, demolishing cheeseburgers and fries. Their spirits have finally lifted.
It’s one o’clock and for the past six hours, Taj had surfed a five-to-six-foot beachbreak on the east side of Bali on his own, attempting the world’s first acid drop from a chopper onto a wave. He’d surfed the session without water or food. As the crew packed up and talked about the session, he’d sat sulking in the same seat waiting to depart.
Taj is the Danny Way of surfing: wavepools, solo chopper sessions, big-budget bio flicks. It’s the sort of surfing that excites and inspires and motivates every punk with a DVD and a modicum of skill to practise over and over and over again in his own beachbreak.
And, now this, a world first. Again, like the wavepool and the earlier solo chopper session, the idea of Stab magazine. This time, Taj was going to jump five metres out of a chopper, stomp the landing on a six-foot wave and ride out to glory.
But after a handful of radical, but unsuccessful, attempts he called it quits while he still had a spine and legs to carry him home.
Stab: Why did you agree to jump out of a chopper, at our mad request?
Taj: I like the idea of trying something that no one’s ever tried before and I really wanted to know if it was possible.
What needs to happen for it to come together?
We had all the ingredients, it’s just the chopper pilot needed to be a little more cluey on the way swells work.
Describe the feeling up there?
I was scared at the start. I put my seat belt on and had my board wedged between us on the floor. When the blades started flaring, I was like, whoa, this is really windy and my board felt like it was just ready to go. We circled the break and found a sweet spot. I took my belt off, board in one arm, and moved out onto the ledge. The pilot said don’t point the board into the blades. At times, we were really high, like more than 50 or 60 feet. My board was in the wind and we were doing these banking turns and Hump (photographer Dustin Humphrey) was hanging onto me because he thought I was gonna going to disappear out of the bird. I got more and more comfortable. I worked out the right spots to hang on to and where to put my feet. It was a good set up. We just needed the guy to track low with a wave but it was still 15 feet up. When the swell’s not there it’s so high, but when it moves under you it’s not so bad. And I was on the side of the chopper where you couldn’t see the swell’s coming and I was looking straight at the water and they started following the swell in and I was going, this is way too high. Like, I was 25 feet up. Then by the time the swell moved under, it was 12 or 15 foot high.
How was the downwind up there?
It was worse when we were taking off and the chopper was turning and we were positioning ourselves. Once we were tracking flat it wasn’t that bad. I’m pretty sure the only way to grab is the double grab. If I was on the other side of the chopper, I think I could just go a normal frontside hand grab. That’s my most common and strongest grab.
What would you differently if you tried it again?
If you watch a windsurfer or a kiteboarder do huge flips they either land nose first or tail first just to break the fall. I think you need to land tail first. Like double grab onto it, acid drop tail first, let your tail sink and then fall forward.
Never with straps?
No, it defeats the purpose of doing cool stuff without em. Remember that movie Strapped a few years ago? Mindblowing stuff. But it was unrecognised because they had straps.
“I like the idea of trying something that no one’s ever tried before and I really wanted to know if it was possible.”
Were you scared of breaking your stilts?
Yeah, the first jump, by the time I landed my hands were above my head and my legs were stretched out, hyperextended. My feet were together when I hit the board and it looked ridiculous.
How would you have gone if we’d used Joe Driver (the chopper pilot from issue one)?
We would’ve stuck one for sure. I would’ve kept trying and had more confidence of him being able to read the ocean.
Will you do it again? Will you be bummed if someone else nails it?
I don’t mind, but I’ve instigated it and I’d like to stick it. I’d definitely love to do it again.
Postscript: Three years later, and with the world title being his overriding motivation, Taj has yet to repeat his dramatic stunt.
by Sam McIntosh
