For 99% of surfers north of Point Conception, December 28, 2023, was a day to do anything but surf. Santa Cruz’s pointbreaks were bombarded with west swell. Ocean Beach was buried under whitewater. Even Mavericks, which doesn’t look welcoming most days, had more stink eye than usual.
And yet an all-star tow squad – including Peter Mel, Jojo Roper, Lucas Chianca, Kai Lenny, Matahi Drollet, Andrew Cotton, Will Skudin and Nic von Rupp – descended on Mavericks nonetheless. Not to be outdone, locals Luca Padua, Hunter Murison and Michael Joshua held their own as well.
In a session filled with mutant 30-footers and an upheaving ocean, San Francisco charger Bianca Valenti had one of the day’s more horrific wipeouts. You can watch the full video in all its horror above, courtesy of Powerlines Productions. Salute to filmers Curt Meyers and Eric Nelson for documenting nearly every Mavericks session for 30-plus years.
After whipping into a bomb behind the peak (what’s your guess, 35 feet?), Bianca hit a flat section as the wave morphed into the bowl, catching her outside rail and falling over the handlebars. A split second later, she looked up into the maw of a top-to-bottom beast. And then? Only she really knows how that one felt.
The San Francisco native proceeded to take a few more bombs on the head before the skis could get her. The pickup exemplified the teamwork and expertise of the Mavericks water safety team. Drake Stanley got to her first, but could only watch as Bianca fell off in the foam. Then her tow partner, Jeff Kafka, snagged her before she went through the rocks.
“Watching that whole thing play out is intense,” Drake said. “Somebody like Bianca, even though she’s an amazing charger, she’s also a friend. When you watch your friend go into these death-defying situations, you want to do whatever you can to get to them. But at the same time, you’ve got to put yourself in places where you’re not going to need to be rescued as well. That’s the biggest key of what we as the rescuers do.”
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