Every so often, a video comes across one’s social feed and pulls the e-brake. Be it an improbable tube, a gravity-defying air or a jaw-dropping wipeout, some moments are meant to be underscored and highlighted in bold. That’s what happened when 21-year-old Ty Simpson-Kane of Kuau, Maui, went viral for going inside the Jaws spin cycle last December.
“That was definitely my heaviest wipeout for sure,” Ty shared online. “This was basically the biggest anybody had seen Peahi. It was the big Sunday everybody was anticipating. We were sitting out the back when the set came in and decided to turn and go on it. I knew it was going to be heavy.
“What I didn’t see and what a lot of people didn’t in this video is that right here there’s a little phantom chop,” explained Ty as he watched the video of the nose of his surfboard catching while high up in the pocket. “It projected me over the nose of my board, which created the whole tomahawking down the wave. It was truly the craziest feeling. Especially watching skiers tomahawk down a mountain, I was like, wow, this is exactly what I’d think it’d feel like. I landed so hard on my back that it knocked the wind out of me. I blew two CO2 cartridges and just had to settle in for the most brutal beating of my life.”
In a swell filled with standout moments, from a bombing Eddie to historic Peahi paddle rides, Ty’s flips down and into this Jaws wave are just as memorable as any. But that wasn’t the only memorable wave Ty got that day. He paddled into a massive one in the morning before the wind picked up in the afternoon. And he caught multiple bombs besides the viral wipeout, including a second Big Wave Challenge entry embedded below.
December 22 was a helluva day. For Ty and anyone else who witnessed Pacific power. After the swell calmed a touch the following day, a grateful Ty expressed his thanks.
“There are no words that can truly describe the energy and the power that was surging,” he shared.” “Pe’ahi was alive in all her glory and I still can’t believe I was able to get a wave paddling. Thank you to my family and my team for supporting me.