Traditional paddleboarding hasn’t exactly permeated the U.S. populace the way it has in Australia, where the skill is held in much higher esteem. In Oz, World Champions are sponsored by Red Bull and kids are weaned onto the boards at their local surf clubs.
So with three Molokai2Oahu paddleboarding wins, easily the world’s toughest ocean paddling race, Matt Bevilacqua has pretty much cemented his legend status in the sport. Traditionally a lifesaving device, the prone paddleboard is built for catching and surfing open-ocean swells, linking them together while traveling “downwind.” For big waves, they’re obviously not the ideal tool.
But Bevilacqua just wanted to send it. Watch the entire video for his reasoning, and for his story (he was raised in Tasmania), but we started this piece at the meat: Bevilacqua eating it at Shipsterns, where one needs to get to the bottom of the wave and make a turn, fast, before the wall folds in on you. That didn’t happen on Bevilacqua’s first couple of tries, as you can see. And he was out on a medium-sized day. “It was terrifying, it was really scary,” Bevilacqua told a local Tassie pub. “Those guys that surf that day to day are something else. I’m on a ‘clubby board’ that weighs 10kg. I don’t know how those guys can cop those slabs at 20 feet. My wave was 12 foot and it was like being hit by a bus.”
Bevilacqua, who’s also a triathlete, partnered with Tasmanian charger Marti Paradisis on the project and had a special board shaped for bigger surf. But all the help didn’t make riding a ‘clubby’ at one of the most terrifying waves in the world look any easier.
