Layne takes one for the team
It was classic Beachley. The belle epoch of modern Australian surfing had arrived at her first-ever surf at Cape Solander aka Ours and, before she'd wet her hair, she was doing a phone interview in a boat informing the world she was about to paddle out.
In the lineup, Layne took her time, paddling into the easier ones. Then, after a few hours, it was time for her to get behind the ski and to see what the guts of a bomb looked like. After a pretty ordinary insider, she towed into an eight-footer but butchered it, falling off.
To her eternal credit, went straight back for the rope and sat beyond the pack of surfers on the inside. When a set loomed, Koby Abberton and his tow team took to it. Layne was left with the wave behind. Koby's wave unloaded and coughed him into the channel before it exploded on the rocks. Then, the unthinkable happened. Layne was committed on the wave of the day. And, she, uh, rode it perfectly. She took a higher line when she needed to, rode low through the backwash section and emerged to raptures. Some guys in the lineup were bummed. Some were silent. Others, like Maroubra's Mark Mathews, couldn't believe their luck that such a wave was ridden. Here's why...
Stab: Layne. Wave of the day at Solander. Discuss.
Mark Mathews: It just shows what tow surfing is like. You can show up at some spot, having never surfed it, and end up towing into the wave of the day. But if they were paddling they wouldn't get shit. It's hard to take it away from her though. She rode it through which is fucken amazing. She kinda surfs better than half the guys out there, anyway. There are guys who can't even paddle out there but can get good tow ones. Her riding that wave doesn't show how easy tow surfing is because it's actually easier than that. She's too good a surfer to illustrate how easy it is. I've towed surfers with infinitely less ability into waves like that. You wouldn't take that as a benchmark.
Did you see Layne paddle into anything decent?
It was a pretty hard day to paddle and she was out there out high tide which is difficult. I saw her paddle into a few shitty ones but nothing real good. The wave before she towed was a big one as well. And she completely fucked it (she fell in that crucial acceleration as the wave began to stand up). I deadset thought she was gonna die. I thought we were gonna have to pull her off the rocks but she somehow managed to penetrate before the wave stood up. That probably would've spooked most people. She went back out here and ended up on wave of the day.
As a guy who's made his career travelling around towing into big waves it's a bold thing to say that towing is really easy.
I don't want to take anthing away from Layne. It is really easy to be on a wave that you'd never think twice about riding because you've towed. I've had heaps of my photos from tows and big waves you can't paddle but I've paddled into big waves as well at places like Backdoor and at Pipe. I just think it's disgusting that there are all of these guys who've had made careers out of just towing. It's really bad.
Drop some names on us.
Nup. They know. They'd be just gutted right now. And, I know people are freaking out because a girl did it but she surfs as good as most guys.
Really. Do you reckon this will lead a charge of girls getting into it?
I hope so. There are so many of them who surf so good and they're pushing the boundaries of surfing good in small waves and if they were able to start matching it in big waves, it'd be fucken pretty sick.
There will be a few careers that dry up with the advent of women doing it.
For sure. And I reckon they should, too. I mean there are guys who have made careers from towing without ever having to negotiate a serious take-off. It's not like you have to do anything to catch it except stand there.
But whether you paddled or towed, going over the falls on an eight footer ain't pretty.
Yeah, she went from almost dying to getting the best wave of her life in two waves. Pretty mental.
How long until a girl trumps her wave as the best wave ever ridden by a girl?
Well, I reckon that wave was better than many of the world's top guy surfers would've had in their whole life. That would be a lot better than a lot of professional surfers would've had, as far as barrels are concerned.
What could you do to show how easy it is?
I could tow a fucken first grade football player into a wave like that.
Some closing words?
The worst is when you go to paddle into a wave and there's some clown getting whipped in to it. They're just floating into it from behind on a wave they'd never be able to paddle in to. And, I've towed mates into the best waves of their life. I'm not ripping into punters, I'm ripping the guys who try to sell 'emselves as big-wave guys, that's all. It's not that cool at all. – Sam McIntosh
Posts: 26
Reply #26 on : Tue June 30, 2009, 16:22:45