Analyzing Albee Layer‘s Near-Disaster at Jaws
“I spent part of almost every day of my life thinking about this wave and what could have gone differently. And if that sounds crazy, it’s because it is.”
This quote from Albee Layer perfectly encapsulates his relentless pursuit of maximizing performance on the monumental waves of Jaws. Even on days of exceptionally large swell and long-period energy, Layer’s focus remains singular: get barreled. The wave in question,ridden during the famed december 22 swell,became the subject of a detailed breakdown on his Instagram.
Layer has received three nominations in this year’s Big Wave Challenge – Men’s Ride of the Year, Men’s Paddle, and Wipeout of the Year. Let’s delve into his analysis of the wipeout, the wave that continues to haunt him. The following are excerpts from his commentary; you can hear the full account here and here.
“You can see I’m sitting pretty deep on the reef at this point,” layer explains. “That’s as I had already gotten three waves and I was all warmed up. I was ready to shoot my shot at catching the one.This day had the potential to catch the best wave I’ve ever ridden and I wanted to try. Jaws is trippy because it breaks more like a slab than it does a big wave. With most slabs, you want to be behind it, the deeper you are, usually the easier the entry is into the wave.”
He continues, “You can see on this one, besides that giant boil, it was a fairly easy drop for how big the wave actually was. So as soon as I get to my feet,I angle toward the channel a bit and start knifing it down the line. You have to do that to make a wave from this deep. You can see halfway down the face I kind of start to ease up on the edge. The funniest part is that was a choice.I thought if I continued that line,and it’s hard to do,but I also thought I might outrun the barrel. So I eased up, thought I could go to the bottom and pull up into it because I thought the wave was going to throw out like crazy. And that was where I fucked up, I think. At this point, I looked up, saw the lipline wasn’t doing what I thought it was going to do. I looked like it was about to land on me. And I had a complete flashback to my really bad fall when I got the concussion that changed my life, really.”
Layer describes his desperate attempt to avoid the impact. “So I put everything I could into my toe side rail and was just able to sneak under the worst of the lip. But still got tagged by it.I got pushed face-first so hard into the water that my mouth blew open. The inside of my lip and my gums w
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