Robert Kelly Slater is one of the world’s best all-time surfers. As a pro, he won a record 11 World Surf League Championships. We recently caught up with Slater, 46, for a few questions at the Breitling Boutique in New York, where he is a watch brand ambassador. The new Superocean Heritage II Chronograph 44 Outerknown was being featured. Following are edited excerpts from a longer conversation with the surf legend.
Jim Clash: What's the biggest wave face you’ve surfed?
Kelly Slater: About 45 feet. You work up to it. You don’t just jump on the biggest wave you’ve ever seen out of nowhere. As a kid, I was pretty scared of big waves because in swim class a guy held me underwater until I breathed in water, so I freaked out about drowning. In my teenage years, I wasn’t into surfing big waves. But when I became the next good, young guy, there was pressure on me to surf bigger. I decided that I had to go up in wave height a little every year – just a couple of feet. If I did two feet a year for 10 years, then I’m 20 feet higher than I was 10 years back [laughs]. The idea was to keep pushing myself a little each year, put myself in uncomfortable situations. I realized that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, and it wasn’t that difficult to move up faster than I had thought I could. So from age 16 to 20, I went from being afraid of sort of big days to I’d go out in anything.
Clash: Where is your favorite place to surf, and where is the scariest?
Slater: My favorite is probably Fiji. The scariest is either Jaws on Maui, Hawaii, or Half Moon Bay at Mavericks, California. Mavericks is frightening. They have cold, dark water there, and rocks. Two friends of mine died there, and there have been multiple shark attacks. It’s a half-mile offshore. You kind of just spin the wheel for dangers. I’ve almost drown there twice myself.
Clash: What are you afraid of?
Slater: I guess we’re all afraid of dying on some level. And that fear is realistic in what I do. I know about a half dozen surfers who have drowned. Formula 1 may be more dangerous. I don’t know how many people have died there. But I do know Ayrton Senna was one. I get scared of feeling like I’m all alone in the world, and that no one can help me but me. But that’s kind of why we do what we do. It gives this sense of freedom that it’s you making all of the decisions.
Clash: Who was your surfing idol growing up and who are the hot-shots today?
Slater: Tom Curren was my idol. I would watch him surf, and he surfed a wave the way my mind would surf a wave, if I could do it perfectly. In my head that’s what I wanted to aspire to – the level that Tom was. A current guy is John John Florence, a two-time World Champion. But he’s about to lose that crown because he’s injured this year. A guy named Gabriel Medina is likely to win it this year. I thought he could win 10 world titles when he started out. But he’s still probably the most dangerous guy out there. There is also a guy named Eli Hanneman from Maui who represents the new, new, new school.
Clash: What do you think of tow surfing?
Slater: It’s functional. It became a craze quickly when guys started towing in the late 1990s. I went out to Jaws then, and there were like 25 guys out there on jet skis. It was just mayhem. Now it’s gotten to the point to where it’s really rare to see someone towing into Jaws. On the big days now, most people are paddling, and it would be just too dangerous to have all the jet skis out there. The jet skis have basically been relegated to water safety there now.
