MONDAY
E-mail a friendLaird Hamilton
airdate June 28, 2006
Laird Hamilton is considered the greatest big wave surfer in history. He pioneered tow-in surfing and is gifted in a number of other water sports, including waterskiing and windsurfing. Hamilton was born in San Francisco and grew up in Hawaii. He left school at age 16 to become a model, but always intended to make a name for himself in the sport he loved. Hamilton helped produce the '03 surfing documentary Riding Giants and is helping raise awareness about autism by biking a crossing from London to Paris.
Laird Hamilton
Tavis: Laird Hamilton is widely regarded as the world's best big wave surfer, often taking on waves as tall as six story buildings. A new documentary captures Laird and friends taking on some of the biggest waves on the planet off the coast of Maui. "All Aboard the Crazy Train' premiered last year at the Maui Film Festival. Now out on DVD, here now a scene from "All Aboard the Crazy Train.'
Tavis: You are crazy.
Laird Hamilton: Absolutely not.
Tavis: You are absolutely out of your freaking mind. (Laughs) What's wrong with you, man?
Hamilton: Nothing. I think I'm the most sane person I know, actually.
Tavis: How do you look at that stuff that we just saw and consider yourself sane? See, that's how I know you're crazy. You think you're sane.
Hamilton: Well, that's true. You gotta believe that you're not doing something that stupid. I always say there's two things, there's crazy and there's stupid. Crazy is maybe you'll do something dangerous, but it's a calculated risk. Stupid is you just go out and you don't have any idea what you're doing. You stand there and you get run over. For me, I'm doing calculated risk.
I've been surfing since I was two years old, and I've evolved to a point where I can ride waves of this height. I see a lot of people out in these giant waves that absolutely are out of their mind, and shouldn't be there. And I fear for their lives. And that's kind of what our film is about. (Laughs)
Tavis: How do you calculate the risk when you're being towed into a wave like that by a helicopter? How do you calculate that risk?
Hamilton: Through experience. Through doing it over and over, and first riding a two-foot wave, then a four-foot wave, then a six-foot wave. And the thing about the waves, waves are predictable, unlike humans. Humans can do all kinds of irrational stuff. Waves come from the same direction. There's a certain reliability that the ocean has that when you know it, you can rely on. And humans aren't like that. The most dangerous thing in the ocean most of the time is other people.
Tavis: Okay, so I'm a novice here, obviously. I've never done this, never tried it. Matter of fact, my grandmother used to say, Big Mama, God rest her soul, used to say, Laird, only White folk would do stuff like that. (Laughs) Ain't no Negroes gonna be caught out on no six foot tall building size of a wave. Only White boys do stuff like this.
Hamilton: That's not true.
Tavis: Is that not true?
Hamilton: That's not true. My best friend, David Cantrell, is one of the greatest surfers that I know, and he's a brother through and through, and phenomenal surfer. One of the best surfers that I've ever seen. And I think it's just exposure. I think it's where we are. We're living in Hawaii, and there's just not a lot of people that are exposed to it.
Tavis: Do you see, though, and I said that jokingly, although that was a true story, my grandmother did say that.
Hamilton: Yeah, and my friend, (laughs) that friend is a good surfer.
Tavis: That was a true story, and your friend is a great surfer. To that point, though, do you see that more people of color, though, are getting turned on by the sport? Steve Stevens, our guy here on the set...
Hamilton: Yeah, I think in general, you see...
Tavis: ...is a person of color, and he's crazy too, but he (unintelligible).
Hamilton: But I'm seeing people of color, I'm seeing going into snowboarding, skateboarding, going into big wave riding. Again, it's about exposure, where you live, and the availability of these conditions for you to be able to learn how to do it and do it. But yeah, absolutely.
Tavis: One of the things, I was talking about sport the other day with a friend of mine, Laird, and we were talking about the fact that some sports are prohibitive for people of color because the cost is prohibitive. Golf is a very expensive thing to do, and there are other sports, of course, that fall into that category. I wonder whether or not we think...
Hamilton: But I think...
Tavis: Is surfing not expensive?
Hamilton: See, I don't think poverty is a racial thing. I think being poor is, poor people are just in general, no matter who they are...
Tavis: No, no, I agree on that point.
Hamilton: Yeah, yeah. But the...
Tavis: But if it costs money to do...
Hamilton: Surfing's pretty cheap.
Tavis: That's what I was about to ask.
Hamilton: Get a surfboard; you don't need much of one.
Tavis: What's a good surfboard cost these days?
Hamilton: Well, you could get a used board for a couple hundred bucks, if that. Less than that. You can probably get a piece of one. We learned, when we were kids, we had pieces of boards. Broken boards that were discarded. We went and just learned how to surf on those, or pieces of plywood. At a certain point, it doesn't take - of course, in cold conditions you need a wetsuit. But really, the waves are free. Only in California do you have to pay for parking at a beach. (Laughs) In Hawaii, it's free parking.
Tavis: And in California, that parking will get you, it's the parking that keeps me, that's why I don't surf.
Hamilton: Keeps you from going to the beach. (Laughs)
Tavis: That's why I don't surf. It's just the parking. That's the only reason why I don't do it.
Hamilton: If you can find a space, it's too much anyway.
Tavis: Yeah. You said something a moment ago that got my attention, though. When you said, which I thought was a brilliant point, philosophically. You said that people are unpredictable, and you're right about that, God knows. (Laughs) But that waves are predictable. If waves are predictable, I don't understand this, but you tell me. If waves are predictable, then what causes, and why do I see people wipeout, if they know that the wave is gonna do X, Y, or Z?
Hamilton: A combination of their skill and their knowledge. Their ability to really read it. Maybe they don't have the judgment to understand what's gonna happen. Or maybe something happens irregular that is caused by somebody else being on the wave. A boat wake, something unforeseen, or equipment malfunction. Your fin breaks off the board. Something happens with your boards.
The foot strap maybe comes out, that you have some sort of technical problem. But if you know waves, they don't do too much irregular stuff. There might be some weird wind, or something that can affect it and will create a wipeout, or you just bite off more than you can chew. That's usually what happens. People just take more than they can handle.
Tavis: All right, let's assume for the moment, I don't engage in hypotheticals. This is a real talk show, and I try to ask real questions and have real dialogue. Let's for the moment assume that I were going to think about...(laughs)
Hamilton: Riding a giant one?
Tavis: Starting to surf. Just hypothetical, Laird, hypothetical. But if I were thinking about it, and I went out with you, walk me through a couple of the preliminary steps. How do I learn how to surf? How does this process begin? I've never done anything.
Hamilton: Well, the prerequisite would be swimming.
Tavis: Okay.
Hamilton: Right at the top.
Tavis: Okay, anyway, all right, (unintelligible).
Hamilton: So if you don't swim, (laughs) then we need to provide you with some sort of flotation device or something. (Laughs) If you don't swim, and that would be the first step, obviously, was teaching you how to swim, if you didn't swim.
Tavis: So let's assume I swim.
Hamilton: And you swim?
Tavis: I do swim. Let's assume I swim.
Hamilton: And then if you swam, we'd take you out and we'd first bring you into some small waves, and get you on a really large board. I'd probably be on the board with you, or near you, and then assist you. Initially...
Tavis: Two folk can ride a board at the same time?
Hamilton: Oh yeah.
Tavis: Wow.
Hamilton: Yeah, if it's big enough.
Tavis: Right.
Hamilton: You and I would probably really need a very big board, yeah.
Tavis: That's a big board. Yeah. (Laughs)
Hamilton: We might be at the beach by the time we take off. (Laughs) But yes. A good board, the right location. So a couple good - some good advice. Just, like, how to get to your feet quick, and the wave judgment, and know how to understand when the wave's coming. And again, that just comes from somebody giving you some advice, and you having the experience of being out in the water.
I have people I know, I've been in the water where people are sitting there, and I go, oh, yeah, I'm learning. Oh, how long you been learning? Oh, a year. And I go, well, have you caught a wave yet? And they go no. I go, come over here right now. Get them over there, put them on my board, here comes a wave, I turn them around, push them in. I yell at them, stand up. They stand up, they ride the board. Maybe that enthusiasm will last them one more year of waiting. But surfing's not easy. Surfing is a hard, hard sport.
Tavis: To that point, tell me why it would take somebody a year to catch a wave, and what takes so long to get one of these things?
Hamilton: First of all, bad advice. Somebody gives them - they see somebody riding this little, tiny board, all the professionals ride these little boards that are six or seven feet long, and they're like a potato chip, they have no flotation. You're really just swimming with this little board. And you get them, and they'd be out there, they couldn't paddle, they couldn't stand up, they couldn't catch a wave.
It would just be an ongoing problem that they'd have. And if you give them the right board and took them to the right location and gave them the right advice, first, second day, they'd stand up. Third, fourth day, next week, they'd be actually surfing. So, bad advice, bad equipment, combination of all those things would make it take that much more time.
Tavis: Yeah. Tell me, how'd you first get started? Everybody who knows you now knows you as the best surfer in the world. How did you get started, though? What turned you on about this sport, initially?
Hamilton: Well, my mother. I was in Hawaii at probably one of the most aggressive beaches in the world, which was Pipeline Beach. And my father, my stepfather, actually, Bill Hamilton, was a champion surfer. And I was just exposed to it. It would be like if you grew up next to the Staples Center and you went to the game every night, you might wanna play basketball or some other sport that was happening there.
And so I was at the right place, and then I had a natural desire and a kind of a courageous attitude to do the things that it would take to evolve and get better. And all the men that I looked up to were great ocean men, and so it was kind of like if I didn't, it would be a pretty foolish thing.
Tavis: Yeah. You have two kids?
Hamilton: Yeah.
Tavis: They surfing yet?
Hamilton: Yeah. But I'm not a Little League dad.
Tavis: You're not. (Laughs) So you don't make them get out and do it.
Hamilton: No. I like them to ask me, Dad, can we go surfing? Then I'm like, sure, gladly. But I'm not gonna be, because I want them to be fulfilled on their own thing.
Tavis: And your wife, again, your fans know this, your wife, great volleyball player.
Hamilton: Yup.
Tavis: Yeah.
Hamilton: She surfs, Gabby surfs. She likes to surf too. But she's pretty picky. She likes warm water, Hawaii, one particular location.
Tavis: I'm with Gabby on that.
Hamilton: Yeah, yeah. (Laughs) She's got a special thing.
Tavis: Did I read somewhere that you've been doing some work with autism?
Hamilton: Yeah.
Tavis: Tell me about that.
Hamilton: Well, I have a close friend of mine that does all the cinematography on all of our films, this guy Don King. And his son is...
Tavis: Not that Don King.
Hamilton: Not, no, no. This is a water polo player-cinematographer, not a boxing promoter.
Tavis: Yeah. (Laughs)
Hamilton: And his son is autistic, and he's been working on a documentary about the healing of autism. And he's been funding it himself for the last two years. And it's in the editing process, and they kind of ran out of money, so I thought I could try to raise some money by doing, like, a little human challenge.
And I was going to Europe for some business, so I thought I'd ride my bike from Paris to Dover, and then I'd stand up paddle on a surfboard across the English Channel. And then I'd paddle into - then bike into Paris after that. And I did it in two days.
Tavis: That's amazing.
Hamilton: So, and actually, the film, he has a website, it's called
Tavis: Indeed it is. So finally, what's your next innovation? The great thing about you is that you're not just the best surfer. You, like, have all these innovations. These money-making innovations, no less. So you're working on something else in the laboratory now?
Hamilton: I think I'm constantly trying to evolve the sport, and I think the number one driving force for me, personally, is to continue loving it, and not make it something that surfing is like this burden on me. Like, I think that a lot of professional athletes or professional anything, when they get done with what they're doing, you think they're gonna go do that for fun? I don't think so.
Where I love it, and I wanna continue to love the ocean, so I just look for ways to keep regenerating my enthusiasm for doing it. And just wait for the big ones. Wait for the monsters to come.
Tavis: (Laughs) Wait for the monsters to come. What a life. For all my friends who are watching who happen to be people of color who do surf, I was teasing. Don't send me emails. (Laughs) I know you surf. I see you in L.A. (Laughs) I see you in Malibu. It was just, Big Mama did say that, but it was just a joke. So anyway, it's a pleasure to meet you.
Hamilton: My pleasure.
Tavis: An honor to have you on the program. Laird Hamilton. That's our show for tonight, catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International; check your local listings. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from L.A., thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith.
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