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The next wave?

Ski innovators Mike Douglas and Cody Townsend take alpine ski gear to Hawaii, and discover a whole new way to play
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In the annals of dumb-ass ideas perpetrated in the roiling, wind-hammered surf off the Hawaiian coast, towing into and then riding big waves on skis could have been the dumb-assest of all. But when such a first-time venture is pulled off with such style and receives a ringing endorsement from big wave mad-scientists like Laird Hamilton and Dave Kalama, dumb now seems brilliant and the spectre of bush league has suddenly become big league.

Such was the case for new school skiing "Godfather" Mike Douglas and acolyte Cody Townsend last November on Maui's infamous North Shore. But like any accomplishment in outdoor sport, having succeeded in what was variously imagined as impossible, impractical and at least imprudent, the pair find themselves wondering: what's next? Neither is sure, but there are worse places to be as an athlete than pondering the next step after an unexpected success. For the time being, however, big wave riding on skis is just a damn good story.

 

It's an idea that burns in the back of the mind of many a surf-addled skier when they look up at the smooth, jacking face of a massive wave: could you actually ski on one of these things?

Whistler-based Mike Douglas had wondered just this ever since he got into surfing. Cody Townsend, who grew up surfing in California, had long-entertained similar thoughts. Then in October 2008 the pair found themselves at a Salomon meeting in France. Townsend, Douglas and a few others were having a beer at a reception before the meeting, conversing casually about diverse topics like skiing, surfing and Salomon Freeski TV (Mike's latest project, then in its second season). As the conversation ranged around, the topics converged and a light bulb went off. Someone said, "Hey-why don't you try..."

Townsend and Douglas lit up.

Crazy ideas often come up in conversation, especially where beer is involved, but this time it happened among people who had the talent and the resources to pull it off. From the start, there were no delusions of grandeur about starting a new trend, no bigger or longer-term picture in mind; it was always pure novelty, a "wouldn't it be cool to try" fantasy.

Mike happened to be going almost directly to Hawaii from France for a three-week family surf vacation and he thought about the idea every day he was in the water. He tried to imagine the size of wave they would need in order to generate enough momentum to ski it, how they would tow into it to start the ride and all the other attendant logistics. He invested enough thought in the idea that when he returned to Whistler he was confidant it could be done. The main questions were where, when and exactly how? At least one answer was clear: Hawaii was the logical venue because of its well-established offshore tow-in surf scene. It was also the closest big-wave destination to B.C. and California and offered the highest probability of finding qualified co-conspirators.

The first person Douglas contacted in the early spring of 2009 was Johnny Decesare from Poor Boyz Productions (PBP also does windsurfing films and have a surf-mad crew based on Maui), whose immediate reaction was "let's make it happen." By this point Douglas and Townsend knew it was going to take big waves to do it successfully; with a crew in place and a plan to attempt the feat during autumn 2009 they kept the idea under wraps until the end of the 2008 big-wave season lest anyone poach the idea.

Now it was time to figure out the necessary equipment. Feeling it unlikely that they could use alpine skis (although they tried), the boys researched different types of water skis, pulling together ten different models and boot-binding set-ups. In July 2009 they tested the systems behind a boat in Green Lake. The session yielded plenty of information: alpine skis didn't work but alpine bindings and, particularly, alpine boots were far safer than water ski set-ups and offered the necessary support to deal with big waves (and alpine boots, fortuitously, floated well). Along the way they met Jason Starr, a guy who actually hoped to make wave skiing a business and held patents on dedicated gear. He sent Douglas and Townsend three different skis to try, one of which they ended up taking with them. They also tried some wake skis-a twin-tip hybrid between wakeboard and water ski used for doing tricks-and ended up taking two pair of these. More testing ensued and then the first official wave-ski "session" took place in September at an indoor standing-wave facility in Utah. Then it was off to Maui.

 

Knowing big waves were the key and that they were going to have to hang around to get them, the pair set themselves up on Maui's North Shore for a month.

The first order of business was mounting skis, prepping other gear (for instance buying the right life vests for tow-in surfing, built to take the impact and thrashing of a big wave) and meeting with the filming crew and Levi, the guy who would tow them into waves on his jet-ski and retrieve them after every ride.

Suddenly it was game on.

"We got out on our fifth day and were nervous and unsure," says Douglas. "There were still a lot of questions in our minds: will we be able to ride waves at all? What's gonna happen when we crash? Will the skis come off without twisting our limbs out of their sockets?"

The first wave faces were in the two to three metre range, the minimum they figured was required. It wasn't long before they realized that it worked-each was pumped to sustain that first ride down the line on the wave.

"Skiing on a big wave felt like a perfect mesh between the fear of surfing a big wave and the comfort of being in my element on a pair of skis," says Townsend. "Once we were riding [big enough] waves, it didn't feel like surfing with skis on, it just felt like skiing-a surprisingly calm sensation. The sketch-factor only came into play when you kicked out of a wave and realized you had skis, boots and bindings attached to your feet and a big set was looming on the horizon."

But they found that getting the skis off after a wipeout wasn't too hard and that they weren't any more beaten up by waves than the average surfer. They started planning wipeouts to go with the flow of the breaking wave, minimizing torque on their bodies and keeping the skis on, or close, so they could get picked up by the jetski and back to the outside quicker. That mental margin of safety yielded more confidence and a willingness to push things.

"We went out the second time with a lot more confidence into slightly bigger waves," recounts Douglas. "It was also a different break where the waves packed more punch. So we weren't just riding-we were doing slashes and jumps, taking the game to a higher level."

The only mishap in the early going occurred when Townsend kept his skis on after a wipeout and took a double-overhead close-out on the head, pinning him to the reef three to four metres underwater, standing on his skis, thinking to himself  "that was such a bad idea." He eventually made it back up to the surface, but it was a reality check: if a big wave is going to hit you when you're already in the water, get your skis off.

As the pair pushed harder they started breaking skis: four snapped in the first three days.

It was a water trip, but the biggest challenge was air. Winds of fifteen knots or more blew for twenty of the twenty-five days they were there, making it tough to get out to the reefs. But even that cloud held a silver lining. Townsend, a kiteboarder, tried kite-skiing on their set up one day and found that it worked well.

"Kite-skiing was surprisingly easy. I've thought about it for years but was always fearful of trying it with not-so-optimal gear in the harsh environment of my local kiting area in Northern California. So finally getting the chance in Maui was a mini-dream come true."

If any discipline were to emerge from this experiment, it may be this one.

"Kite-skiing has more potential than tow-in skiing," Townsend contends. "It requires less gear, less skill and is more approachable. And in only an hour of kite-skiing we were popping airs and tricks."

Still, it didn't take away from their quest with the Everest of ocean skiing.

 

The wait for big waves and the real possibilities continued until near the end of the trip, when a worthy swell finally delivered five to seven metre wave faces.

"Our nerves were reignited that day," recalls Douglas. "Getting out of the harbour was a mission. We had two-metre breakers on the ramp where we were launching the jetski. Rolling out through house-sized waves had us asking 'do we really want to do this?'"

Townsend towed in first and right away found that the combination of big waves, smooth faces and high speed made it feel like real skiing. He caught five or six good waves while Douglas waited on shore. Then Douglas went out and caught a few. He was on his fifth ride when he caught a really long one that he would later count as one of the top ten moments of his life on skis. It was also one of the biggest waves of the day, a solid seven-metres from trough to tip. He finished his ride and kicked out the back, only to look up and see another huge wave coming in fast. The period of that particular swell was a very short 11 seconds, and proved to be the downfall of the day. Douglas describes the ensuing drama-the big-wave surfer's nightmare:

"I was wondering whether to prep for getting beat down when Levi came screaming in with a look of terror on his face. He spun the jetski and yelled at me to grab the tow sled. He was like: 'Hang on, we gotta do this quick!' So I grabbed the sled, he pinned it and the next thing I knew we were smashed from above. I took it on my back and was spinning underwater for what seemed forever. I popped up not too far from Levi and he's yelling 'We lost the ski, we lost the ski!" He meant the jetski, so I knew it wasn't good-we were trapped between sets. The cameramen showed up and one jumped in the water with me while the other took Levi to find the jetski. In the 15 minutes we were in the water the current took us a mile down the coast. And the jetski was a write-off-the wave ripped the engine off its mounts, bent the drive shaft, ripped a panel off the side. We were lucky to be okay."

That was the end of their true big-wave day... and the trip.

"The coolest part is that we came back alive and actually pulled it off," summarizes Douglas. "The second coolest thing is that we were fully welcomed into the gnarly surf community on Maui. It's not a forgiving place if they perceive you as a kook."

When Laird Hamilton and Dave Kalama let the guys know that they were fully stoked on the project, it made sense to leave them the gear so they could try it themselves.

Douglas and Townsend have no big plans to try the big-wave game again anytime, but if they were, they're armed with the knowledge what needs to change or be improved upon. They may have only scratched the surface, or gone as deep as you can go, but one thing is clear: they made many a skier's fantasy come true.

 

You can watch big-wave skiing on Salomon Freeski TV season 3, episode 11.

 

 



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