Laird Hamilton, one of surfing’s greatest names, and leading Volvo Ocean Race contender Ken Read have joined forces with a common target of finding the world’s biggest waves. Read wants to avoid them and Hamilton aims to surf them.
"Laird wants our meteorological technology to help him find the biggest waves in the world. He’s deadly serious when he says, ‘I want to find and surf the biggest waves’...”
The race which covers more than 39,000 nautical miles over nine months in the sport’s toughest test for off-shore, monohull racing, has brought together two giant figures from their respective pursuits who have found they have much in common, writes Jon Bramley.
Both are passionate about marine preservation and they also share a fascination bordering on obsession to find new designs to make their sea crafts go even faster. This week, they spoke exclusively to the Volvo Ocean Race about their new partnership under the banner of Read’s second campaign with PUMA, having finished runner-up in the last race in 2008-09.
Hamilton has been appointed the honorary 12th crew member of Read’s 11-man on-board line-up with a brief of adding his massive technical and ocean knowledge to the mix and also offer nutritional tips to the sailors. So far, according to Read, the match-up of two large personalities is working just fine.
Hamilton is regarded as one of surfing’s most daring exponents and the father of stand-up paddleboarding while the PUMA skipper is one of the best known and respected sailors in the world with a string of titles behind him. “About four or five months ago, Antonio (Bertone, PUMA’s chief marketing officer) had a Eureka moment – he introduced me to Laird, we talked on the phone a bunch of times and got Juan (Kouyoumdjian, leading boat designer) involved,” he said at the media launch of his Mar Mostro boat in Newport.
“We had these unbelievable conversations. If I was smart I would have taped these phone calls between these people from completely diverse parts of the marine world. “And it just started happening.”
Read brushes off any suggestion that Hamilton is in any way a gimmicky signing for PUMA although he freely admits he wants to tap in to the surfer’s huge and still growing fan club, an audience which have yet to be won over by the master helmsman’s type of ocean racing.
“This is serious. He wouldn’t have done this if it wasn’t deadly serious for him. He wants something from this and we want something from him. He wants Juan’s technology to develop the best racing, stand-up paddleboard.“And he wants our meteorological technology to help him find the biggest waves in the world. He’s deadly serious when he says, ‘I want to find and surf the biggest waves’.”
Read’s crew, using the PUMA onshore and onboard team’s weather and navigational equipment, will track wave patterns while sailing through the remotest reaches of the world’s oceans. As the biggest waves are found, Hamilton will fly in ready to surf them.
In return, the 47-year-old will lend his considerable expertise to PUMA’s campaign to boost the world’s awareness of the need for marine preservation and offer dietary knowhow which Read believes will help lift his crew’s mental performance too. And that’s a vital element in a race held over such a long period.
“In any good business relationship I’ve ever been, it’s been a business relationship which turned quickly into a friendship. And it’s exactly the same thing with Laird. And that’s helping our team more than we could ever have imagined.” Hamilton is every bit as enthusiastic about working with Read, Kouyoumdjian and his team.
“I would love to say this was an elaborate plan but it really happened organically – like most of the good things that have happened in my life,” he said. “I’ve been needing somebody like Juan, with his science background and his design capability to fulfill my dreams and Kenny also can help me see through some of the things that I want to see through.”
If the chemistry had not been right, Hamilton says he would not have taken part in the project. “I have people I’ve been acquainted with for 20 years that I feel I don’t know and there’s others I’ve met for five minutes and it feels like I’ve known for 20 years. Kenny is one of those second type of people.
“When you have a similar value system, everything else is insignificant.”
The collaboration of the pair, swapping ideas on nautical design in long, almost manic brainstorming sessions, has already borne fruit for Hamilton with the manufacture of a new paddleboard which he believes is an important breakthrough in the sport.
For Read, only an improvement on last time’s second place in the Volvo Ocean Race will publicly vindicate their partnership on a purely sporting platform.
Listening to them both speak so passionately this week, however, you sense that their pooling of marine knowhow and technical knowledge backed by a new but genuine friendship has made this fascinating experiment in mixing sports backgrounds a runaway success already.
Source : Volvo Ocean Race
