Epic Surf Session At Jaws | Red Bull Young Jaws

Welcome to Maui. I'm Ian Walsh. Let's get uncomfortable. It is carnage and chaos at Jaws. I'm prepared to take on whatever's there. Just get ragdolled, thrashed around. You don't even know which way is up. It is quite a chaotic problem. Jaws is set on the north shore of Maui. And it is definitely a special and unique wave. This wave is as tall as any wave and as powerful as any wave you'll ever get in the world. So that alone is going to attract a good majority of the best big wave surfers in the world that want to try their hand at it. There's 25 other skis at least. And they all want the biggest wave out there. So then there comes in the jockeying of just getting the wave. Not only are you trying to get your surfer behind you into the biggest wave of his life, but you're having to strategize around three or four other jet skis, whip them in in the perfect spot. Then you let go and you've got to ride one of those waves. What if you fall? What if you get the wave of your life and it gives you the biggest contract, the biggest career ahead of you ever? It can change in a snap of a finger. Anything at any time out there will happen. It's pretty far from the line up to the cliff and I could hear people kicking out of each wave, yelling, screaming, clapping. Little do they know all of our lives are on the line. They have no idea I think. Nobody knows until you actually get out there and feel what that wave can do to someone. I hit the water so hard on one wave, the life jacket I had on broke. It blew the zipper open. So when I hit it, it was like a parachute just opened on my back and just put me to a dead stop. And I was probably going like 40 or 50 miles an hour. If he goes down on a wave, I am the first person that has to be on it and has to be in there to get him. His life is basically in my hands. To an extent, you don't really rely on anyone but yourself when the waves are that big. I don't expect the jet ski to be there when I pop up or anything. I'm prepared to take on whatever's there. You don't know what's going to happen. You don't know if the ski is going to break or what. And that can happen because when you come in, the foam is so thick and the whitewash from those, that when you're driving the ski, it's sucking in air instead of water and basically can lose your ski. When you lose a ski, you're just watching 15 grand slam up against the rocks. You're just hoping you don't wash up on the rocks with the jet ski, with the boards. Big wave surfing has evolved dramatically, I think. As anything progresses, it just gets better and better and better. In the big wave surfing aspect, it just gets bigger, deeper, more power. We've got a lot of younger kids coming up that are just going for it. They're catching a lot of respect from the older guys that are out there. Ian has a huge future ahead of him surfing-wise. He's been a really big help to me in surfing, especially in big wave surfing, giving me advice and whatnot. Kind of paving the road for a lot of the younger kids. Those days are so much adrenaline and so much going on that once you get one day, you're like, when's the next one?