Adaptive Surfers Catch a Boat to Cold-Water Perfection

Clay, who was born with cerebral palsy, was supported in the water by his triplet brother Tanner.

“We got spoiled,” says Tanner. “Clay loves the big waves. The bigger the better. It’s just if we can paddle out and if we can do it safely, so having the opportunity to do the boat trip and experience a point break for the first time together was pretty ground breaking for us and what we learned we’re capable of.”

“We usually have a pretty intense support team that helps us in the whitewash and to reroute while we are getting hammered, but there we could just ride off the wave and go straight back out and catch the next one. Clay barely got wet. It was pretty epic,” Tanner continues.

Scoring the remote wave was kismet for Clay, Tanner and the Forward film crew. With a slight 10-day window scheduled to shoot the surf action in Tofino, B.C., the boat trip was a dream in the mind’s eye that serendipitously came true thanks to Canadian surf icon Mathea Dempfle-Olin.

“She really held the keys to the break,” says Tanner. “Mathea, along with the local surf community, have a deep connection to that wave. It’s a place that’s looked after carefully, and being invited into that space meant a lot. There’s definitely a lot of respect at the break, along with a culture and unspoken etiquette, it’s not somewhere you just show up.”

Team Canada’s Victoria Feige, a six time ISA World Title holder in women’s kneel and dual American-Canadian citizen, journeyed from her home on the North Shore of Oahu to take part in the surfing Tofino portion of Forward. She was pleasantly surprised by the unexpected gift from Mother Ocean.

“We checked the forecast, but we went out hoping really. When we pulled up, it was peeling and glassy. One person called out: cold-water perfection,” Victoria recalls.

Australia’s Kai Colless, the 2024 ISA Prone World Champ, also joined the Forward crew in Tofino, Canada, a place he said was like nowhere he’s ever visited before.

“We knew the boat trip to this remote wave was going to be an epic experience and it absolutely didn’t disappoint,” said Colless.

“We travelled along the rugged coastline eventually pulling up in front of a rocky beach you could imagine you were going to see a black bear wander down. As we all got into our wetsuits, the wave began to grow with the tide ’til a couple of bombs came and the whole boat erupted,” said Australia’s 2024 Para Surfer of the Year. 

During the snow portion of the documentary, Clay and Tanner also go snowcat skiing in Northern British Columbia with Para alpine skier and Paralympic champion Mac Marcoux.

“We didn’t want the film to be just about us. We wanted it to be about the adaptive surf community. We wanted to showcase professional adaptive athletes at the highest level,” says Tanner.

Clay adds that they wanted to go big.

“Bringing these other adaptive athletes in really showed us the power of adaptive sports and what we could accomplish,” he said. 

“That was the best part of the whole film for me was making connections with all these beautiful people. It didn’t matter whether we were in the ocean or on the snow, either way, it was so much fun meeting so many people and realizing how supportive the adaptive community is,” Clay shares.

Safety was a big part of the Forward production, which was directed and edited by Canadian Nic Collar. Clay wore a custom built lifejacket made by his mom Joanne, his surfboard was altered for performance by Colin Dunlop at Island Surf Co. and Sure-Fit Designs out of Comox Valley modified his wetsuit to optimize warmth.  

Check out forwardthefilm.ca for upcoming screenings and events.