1:07:04
That's what was around him.
1:07:08
Couldn't get girlfriends,
didn't have a lot of friends.
1:07:12
What did he do?
1:07:13
He spent and put all that energy
into the water.
1:07:19
In the face of this
youthful alienation...
1:07:22
... Laird precociously turned
to an older generation...
1:07:25
... for inspiration and camaraderie.
1:07:28
Laird Hamilton was around the
legendary big-wave riders of the '60s...
1:07:32
...who were moving into the '70s,
his dad being one of them.
1:07:35
During that time period, Pipeline
Beach was the mecca of surfing...
1:07:39
...and anybody who was anybody
in surfing came and surfed Pipeline.
1:07:43
So I got to see all the guys.
1:07:45
His dad was making boards
for Peter Cole, Warren Harlow...
1:07:50
...Jose Angel, the pioneers
of big-wave surfing.
1:07:54
And Laird was just this little sponge
soaking all this stuff up.
1:07:59
I aspired to be like these pioneers
of big-wave riding.
1:08:04
They were going out on days
when people were evacuating.
1:08:07
Considering his pedigree,
a traditional pro surfing career...
1:08:10
... was Laird's for the taking.
1:08:12
But from a young age,
his imagination was captured...
1:08:14
... by the mythic canvas
of riding giant waves.
1:08:18
I was young and impressionable
in 1969.
1:08:21
So I understood the volume
of what was possible.
1:08:25
I understood there was stuff
out there that hadn't been tapped...
1:08:28
...and that the ocean was capable
of producing places and things...
1:08:32
...that no one had really done.
1:08:34
What Laird and the other
big-wave riders...
1:08:37
... from as far back as the '50s knew...
1:08:39
... is that lying far beyond
the traditional breaks like Waimea...
1:08:42
... were another set of remote
offshore reefs...
1:08:45
...capable of producing waves
of unimaginable size.
1:08:51
Even before 1969...
1:08:53
... the amazing third-reef Pipeline
broke once in 1963...
1:08:58
...as a result of a freak storm
that awoke the sleeping giant.