Ridge Lenny is the younger brother of fellow big-wave surfer and multi-hyphenate waterman Kai Lenny, but he also has his own fair share of harrowing tales. In his latest video, Ridge breaks down one monster barrel at Jaws that he says was the wave of his life.
“This was one of the scariest moments I had ever experienced in big waves,” begins Ridge. “I went way too high on this wave and I thought any second, my head was going to get clipped, and I was going to be cartwheeling down a 40-foot barrel.”
The whole thing started with getting towed into a wave that Ridge could see from moment one was going to be a monster. “As I let go of the rope, I just consciously made the decision, ‘Okay, I’m just going to go as deep as I can, because this thing looks like it’s going to barrel. This looks like it could be the wave of my life,’” said Ridge.
However, he found himself still not deep enough on the wave. In order to remedy that, he stalled hard, which sent him high up the face, putting him in danger of getting clipped by the lip. From there, all Ridge could do was just try as hard as he could to make it back down and out of the tube.
“I don’t even know what’s going on. I don’t know if I’m in the air. I don’t know if I’m dropping in. But then I can just feel the water rushing under my board and I’m flying down this thing,” he explained. “It’s the biggest, most beautiful, but terrifying barrel I’ve ever been in.”
