Jeff Clark (surfer)

Jeff Clark ( born March 26, 1957 in Redwood City, California) is an American big-wave surfer. He became famous for the discovery of the Mavericks wave in Northern California, where he surfed alone for 15 years before other surfers ventured there.

Life

Jeff Clark was born in Redwood City, but his family moved in 1966 to Miramar Beach in Half Moon Bay. There he started with surfing, which made him look soon after bigger and stronger waves along the coast of Northern California. During the winter break could see he and his friends from the hills Half Moon Bay from the large waves before Pillar Point on the north end of the bay. After he had examined long as the conditions on site, Clark surfed Mavericks at Pillar Point in 1975 for the first time. He surfed the next 15 years there alone, before he could convince other surfers to surf with him there on the massive waves. Clark still made ​​his own boards, which were exactly tailored to local conditions, which is why his name remains associated with Mavericks.

In 1994, he was named by the magazine as one of the world's best surfer big-wave surfers. As a consequence, had Clark and the Mavericks surf scene appearances in films such as Riding Giants and Adventures in Wild California. He is the only surfer in the San Mateo County Sports Hall of Fame.

In 1998 he organized the first Mavericks Surf Contest.

Furthermore, he made his name as a shaper of surfboards. Today, he owns a surf shop, where he sells his own boards and his own clothing line.