Pete Mel Dominates Mavericks Awards; Justine Dupont Wins Female Performer of the Year Friday May 14, 2021
At 6 p.m. on the evening of May 13, the inaugural Mavericks Awards were broadcast right here on
The Inertia. Big wave contests are hard to do right. They’re generally one-day events. But the Mavericks Awards succeeded in that it was a culmination of a season’s worth of video clips from the iconic wave, submitted for judges at the end of the waiting period. Thursday night celebrated the hard-charging winter that was, a moment to salute the big wave world.
As many would expect following his season of highlight reel moments at gigantic Mavericks, it was a clean sweep by Mr. Peter Mel. Mel won Best Barrel, Male Performer of the Year, Biggest Wave, and Ride of the Year. Always a standout with her skill and willingness to charge, France’s Justine Dupont nabbed Female Performer of the Year. “When I came to Mavericks,” Dupont said in her acceptance speech,
The Dangers of Surfing Big Waves and Brain Injuries
How often are surfers getting concussed.or worse?
Tom Dosland. Photo: Fred Pompermayer
Dashel Pierson
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At a remote surf spot in northern California, Shawn Dollar was in trouble. It was 2015 and Dollar was surfing alone. When a large set steamrolled his way, he stood on his board for a few feet of extra leverage, and dove beneath the whitewash. But, as he broke the surface, he went head-first into a shallow rock.
His neck was broken; his brain, scrambled.
“The real problem was, which I found out later, that all the concussions I had before added up, and this one was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Dollar, a two-time world record holder for biggest wave ever surfed (one at Maverick’s, another at Cortes Bank). “When I went up to the Amen Clinic, the results from the scans looked like I had played high school, college, and pro football. I had the brain of a pro football playe
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Behind the Lens During A Banner NorCal Winter With Sachi Cunningham
Local photog on this wild season, shooting around home at Mav s and Ocean Beach
Photo: Krista Brenner Photography
Local photog on this wild season, shooting around home at Mav s and Ocean Beach
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Editor’s note: In honor of International Women’s Day, we’ll be rolling out a week’s worth of stories one each day from March 8-14 that celebrate and showcase contributions women have made to the sport, lifestyle and culture of surfing. (And yeah: we’ll continue to do so in the weeks and months ahead.)
Dissecting the Dream: An Inside Look at the Best Six Weeks in Maverick’s History
When the North Pacific went into overdrive Mav’s led the charge
Photo: Billy Watts
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The problem with a couple months straight of North Pacific swell overdrive is just that so many crazy sessions, epic stories, unforgettable waves, bad wipeouts, enraged partners, confused bosses…the whole thing becomes kind of a crazed blur. One, oversized lump of collective surf memory. Which is why pulling one strand out of the narrative in this case, almost two months of very good to epic Maverick’s can help frame the whole event and give it context in the broader scope of the surfing universe.