Laird Hamilton

Laird Hamilton is an American big-wave surfer, born on March 2, 1964, in San Francisco and raised from infancy in Hawaii, first on Oahu and later on Kauai. He is best known as a co-inventor of tow-in surfing: in late 1992 he and his friends Darrick Doerner and Buzzy Kerbox began using inflatable boats to tow one another into waves too large to catch by paddling, a technique later documented in the film Riding Giants. In the early 1990s he belonged to the Strapped Crew, a group that surfed with their feet strapped to their boards at the Jaws break off Maui and tried stunts such as jumps on sailboards. He deliberately stayed away from the professional contest circuit, preferring to treat surfing as an art rather than a wave-by-wave judged score. Away from the water he has worked as a model and actor, including a role in the 1987 film North Shore, and he is married to the former volleyball player Gabrielle Reece.