In 2010, Augenstein poked through the back of a huge wave at Maverick’s. Here, he explains the thought process. Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
Nearly 15 years ago, a young surfer was filmed duck diving a huge set wave at Maverick’s. The clip was recently dug out of the archives and posted on the Instagram account of Powerlines Productions, and it caused quite the stir.
Back in 2010, Ryan Augenstein was 22 years old. He’d made a name for himself as someone to watch at Maverick’s, and it was for good reason. Powerlines Productions has been filming there for as long as anyone, and the film crew with PP has watched him progress as a surfer and likely possess terabytes of footage with him on their hard drives.
Augenstein was one of the hardest charging surfers in a lineup packed with hard charging surfers, and he was feeling pretty damn good about it. In the years since, he’s put in the time, paid to play, and reaped the rewards of being dedicated to Maverick’s.
“I was really confident at the time,” Augenstein said. “I started feeling like I wasn’t going to fall ever, which is a good feeling to have.”
As Augenstein explained, 2010 was before flotation was the norm in big wave lineups. Since he was so confident, he decided to shave a whole lot of length off his surfboards. Dropping from a nine or a 10-foot surfboard to an 8’4″ will make a huge difference in just about every aspect of your surfing.
After he missed a wave, he turned around to see another, much larger one coming at him. Unable to paddle around it in time, he pointed himself at it and decided to try and poke through.
“That’s what I felt was the right thing to do,” he remembered, “so that’s what I ended up doing.”
Pretty incredibly, it worked out for him. “Pre-float vests, you could get under water a little bit better,” he said. “Nowadays I would have bailed for sure, but at 22, I was like, ‘I’m duck-diving this wave.'”
