“It sparked something,” cofounder of Big Wave Risk Assessment Group (BWRAG) Kohl Christensen says of his friend Sion Milosky’s death at Mavericks on March 16, 2011. “We thought, ‘Man, this is fucked. One of the guys pushing the sport the hardest just died in front of us.’”
When Christensen’s good friend and BWRAG cofounder Danilo Couto returned to Hawai‘i from that trip to Half Moon Bay, California, it was apparent something had to be done. This wasn’t the first, and it wouldn’t be the last, death in the big wave surfing community, nor was it the first of Couto and Christensen’s friends to die pursuing waves of extra-large stature. “I’ve had friends die before,” says Kohl. “But when they died, sadly, nothing really changed [as far as safety’s concerned]. When Danilo came back from that session, we got together and started BWRAG; it was the fire that started the whole movement.”
In the years leading up to Milosky’s death, big wave surfing was reaching a boiling point. In 2009, the then-ASP Big Wave Tour (now World Surf League) was starting up. With significant XL-swell events aplenty and competition on the rise, the bar of what size waves surfers were paddling into was set higher. The big wave community was split between paddle and tow-in surfing (catching waves using a jet ski). The collective consciousness shifted: If you’re a real big wave surfer, you paddle whenever possible.
“At that time, the surfing was advancing faster than the safety systems,” says Christensen. “People were pushing it so hard. None of us were wearing [impact or inflation] vests. It felt like something was going to break; it had for a while.”
So, in 2011, at Christensen’s off-the-grid North Shore farm, a group got together and held a CPR course. “My neighbour’s an ER doc, and he knew Pam Foster, who owns the AED Institute. She came out to my barn and we all did this killer CPR class. That was the beginning of it all, and we said, ‘Let’s organise a summit next year.’ Liam [Wilmott, one of BWRAG’s founders] was working at Turtle Bay at the time, so we had our in at the hotel and got it moving.”
It was the first unofficial BWRAG meeting. Over the next decade, the group grew into an internationally taught course, featuring 14 stops across Australia, Hawai‘i, California, Portugal, Chile, British Columbia and more, run by some of the world’s best big wave surfers with emergency response training. They teach ocean safety in a digestible two-day course*.
“We encourage a large mix of age groups, and we want people to understand the course is not necessarily for advanced or big wave surfers. It’s also for young kids, the parent on the beach, whoever,” says Christensen.
Kohl Christensen at the front of the BWRAG classroom at Turtle Bay. North Shore, Oahu. Photo: Ryan Foley.