Chuck Patterson might just be the world’s best big wave skier. It’s likely, in fact, if only because there aren’t exactly a whole lot of people who ski on very big waves. Chuck, though? Chuck’s a pro. He’s been pulling out the twin planks at places like Jaws for years now — most notably while wearing sweet zebra-striped spandex — and he’s still at it. Now, however, he’s focussed his attention on Maverick’s, which has been the focus of a whole lot of great swells in the last little while. One of those swells produced a wave and a ride of such perfection that it caused Sam George to say it was “not only the wave of the decade at Maverick’s, but the best ever ridden at that fearsome break.”
On January 10, amidst a crowd of people surfing on plain old surfboards, Patterson strapped on his ski boots, grabbed his ski poles — which, while I’ve not had the pleasure of waterskiing at giant Maverick’s, seem like they might be unnecessary — and got towed into a Mav’s monster. It was, as the camera operator from Powerlines Productions said, “sick.”
