This is my second Rest In Piece post for a professional surfer this year and it's absolutely terrible. Maverick's claimed it's second life late last night, Wednesday the 16th. It was 50+ feet out there, on shore, with waves breaking well outside of the infamously gnarly bowl section of Mavericks. The best big wave surfers in the world were out paddling and pushing the limits of what they were able to catch out there. From the accounts, Sion caught a bomb, the first of a five wave set, made the bottom turn and just got "mowed down" before getting to the shoulder.
"His board was tombstoning super gnarly like nothing I'd seen before. He had to be 20-feet down and the next wave was right on top of him. I knew I had to get in there but the wave washed in and he was gone. There was no board, no nothing. I went by the rocks, mushroom rocks, the lagoon, then straight back out and asked the guys what happened." - Filmer Chris Killen
Rescue efforts focused on the surfer that went down on wave number two, and no body could find Sion for at least 10 minutes, until Nathan Fletcher made back out on his ski after switching boards, and found his friends body in the mouth of the lagoon over a mile away from the line up. This tragedy will most certainly over rule laws in place to limit PWC assists when Mavericks is being surfed.
"When Maverick's gets that big you need a rescue team working," said Skindog Collins. "What we're doing out there...we're basically like guys in Alaska snowboarding down these things. We need like avalanche support."
Take 10 minutes to listen to this guy talk life, charging big waves, and hawaii. I love the last line, "Safety first." (as he buckles his seat belt).
Sion Milosky Biggest Wave Ever Paddled into from abstractlines.tv on Vimeo.
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