“It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.” – This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
While that quote may be in reference to an album cover from the famed mockumentary, the adage applies elsewhere in life. It’s satirical, in a way, because being dumb and being smart are obviously opposites. But in some cases, the lines get blurred.
For example, this resurfaced footage of a madman driving a speedboat amidst a massive swell at Ocean Beach, California. Some might call the driver stupid, yet at the same time, his delivery of a jump off a massive wave was brilliantly executed. It brings to mind another quote from singer Roger Alan Wade: “If you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.”
As mentioned, the clip above is not new. It has resurfaced in the form of YouTube Shorts, seen above, but a previous video from Avenue Films described the scene:
“Super expensive 43ft Donzi boat ($450,000) was hotdoging at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. This was the Mavericks Surf Contest weekend and the waves were solid 15′. I had some friends surfing and that’s why I was out filming this day. There were a lot of pro surfers out there.
“Out of nowhere comes Captain Booya, he was drinking and gave it the full send on the outside set. Big air to flat water. Everyone in the boat was hurt except the driver. The hull cracked in half and the boat still made it back to its dock in Tiburon. The coast guard cruised by 10 min after this happened and did a few circles and left. Gotta be one of the craziest modern maritime videos in San Francisco.”
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This “Captain Booya” sounds like a real lunatic, probably a fun guy to grab a beer with.
It turns out, the epic boat launch happened during the 2013 Maverick’s Invitational, the event held on January 20th of that year at California’s premier big wave gauntlet a handful of clicks down the coastline from Ocean Beach. That event was won by none other than Peter Mel, a man who has ridden some of the most insane waves at Mav’s in history.
And yet, just up the coast off San Francisco, this maritime madness was going down.
Legendary.
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