Brad Domke and skimboard ninja kick above Mark Mathews while filming the first ever Virtual Reality barrel at The Right. Things could have gone better, ehh?
About a month ago, big-wave hellman Mark Mathews had a mind-altering experience. Not drugs. Much more impactful. He put on a Virtual Reality headset, and the piece of equipment immediately transported him to different worlds: fishing on a lake, helicoptering over Europe, moshing at a Metallica concert. It was as close to time travel as he’d ever seen or felt. Which gave him an idea.
“Let’s do it in a gigantic barrel.”
So the first opportunity he got, he headed to The Right, a spot where he and Taj Burrow recently executed a kamikaze mission to capture the most dangerous surf photo ever shot. They kinda nailed it.
Until totally topping it with this.
With the help of Garage Entertainment, the team used Triggar 360 Technology (compatible with Virtual Reality headsets) to bring normal civilians as close as they’ll ever get to the barrel of a 15-foot wave. If you check out their site, you can toggle the camera view to snag a frontseat ride beneath the mashing lip of The Right. It’s pretty absurd. Little did the team know that a human being on a skimboard by the name of Brad Domke would catapult over Mark’s head during the shoot.
My friend Brad Domke (professional Skim Boarder) was next in line when a bomb set reared up. He started to tow into it and I just couldn’t help myself. I yelled out to Phil Read my tow partner “Go Go! Tow me behind him.” I had seen footage of Domke making the the craziest waves lately so I figured there was a good chance he would make it.
The barrel at The Right is so big so I figured that there would be plenty of room for both of us. It all happened so fast. I just remember coming into the wave and thinking “I’m on the perfect line here. There is plenty of room between the 2 of us”. Then I saw him struggling to deal with the water drawing off the reef as the wave was sucking up.
At that moment I was like “Oh no!” But I held my nerve and my line, and just ducked as low as I could hoping he wouldn’t drop on my head! I saw his board fly by then out of the corner of my eye I saw him. It was like he was falling out of the sky. The scene was so strange a picture of it is tattooed in my head.
Because I was crouching so low as I was coming out of the barrel my arm holding the camera caught the face of the wave and sent me spinning. By then the serious danger had passed and I was rolling around underwater laughing at the sight of Brad doing his mid-air running man in the barrel!
And if we all get to see it in Virtual Reality soon…well…that’d be something.
Head over to Garage Entertainment to find out more about the project. The footage is mind-blowing.
