At 73, Mark has been charging the world's biggest waves for over 5 decades 🌊 🏄🏻
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- Опубликовано: 15 сен 2024
- Big wave surfer Dr. Mark Renneker shares special stories from his solo big wave surf sessions. From being out there all alone in not the most ideal conditions to losing some of his most favourite boards, tune in to know more about the grit and tenacity with which Dr. Mark Renneker tackles some of the world's most formidable waves.
References:
Playing Doc’s Games. The eponymous New Yorker article by William Finnegan that made me a lifelong fan of Mark Renneker
Surf Encyclopedia Bio of Mark Some classic surf videos of Mark
Direct Lab. Where Mark gets his bloodwork done
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Doc is a legend. I knew about him in William Finnegan book "Barbarian Days: A surfing life", were he talks about Mark in the San Francisco/Ocean Side chapter. Much respect Doc! What a life.
that "guy" that helped you look for your board doc was me ,,
roy stockton ..... you're welcome....
sorry we never found it......
Oh wow!
There is 80 year olds surfing 20-30 faces in Hawaii where I live. Him doing it in cold water is gnarly
And bodacious, brah!
Respect! Doc is still charging at 73 !!!!!!!
The story he told would have scared most people 💩less. A mile out in the ocean in dense fog getting pummeled by large waves would definitely stick in my mind.
Saw him paddle into one of the biggest waves I have ever seen at Mavericks with his buddy John Raymond. Doc is a great man. My hero in and out of the water for many years
Listening to the narration, holding my breath till the end of his story, I realized one thing, that riding those high waves, is like touching the live wire, which is the energy or life force within the ocean and therefore, an exhilarating experience in the life of a surfer🎉😮
It definitely carries a lot of energy within it.
DMR is legit. If anything, he tends to downplay the severity of a given situation. So you know if he’s telling the tale it’s not tall, it’s tight as a drum. Such a legend.
Jeez! That’s an incredible piece of history! I’m now 78 and the shoulder “paddle” pain really got to me at 75 after telling friends I’d surf till I was 70.
I’ll be truthful I never surfed double overhead!
Hope you are able to make it back to surf!
Surviving a Huge Day at the Middle Beaches with(out) seasoned veteran Mark ‘Doc Hazard’ Renneker, 1978, San Francisco.
I'd done my time in the Crazy Zone with Mark 'Doc Hazard' Renneker…
I’m not talking about joining him on his try at surfing Potato Patch, though I was surfing with him at Ocean Beach in those days..
Instead I’m talking being WAAAY the hell outside waiting for set waves, all alone... looking for Mark who was the RING LEADER to get me and him out there!
… i'm talking HUNDREDS of yards off shore.
It happened during my 2 years of college at San Francisco State, when I moved up to SF from Santa Cruz, 1977-79. SFSU is the closest college to the gnarliest and most exceptional beachbreak on North America’s West Coast, second only to Puerto Escondido, Mex.
One day, in the Winter of 1979, Mark convinced me to paddle out with him on a day the middle beaches (always the biggest part of Ocean Beach) were a bonified triple overhead… but PERFECT! Irresistable actually.
We were hyperventilating just putting our WETSUITS on, let alone standing at ocean level and prepping to paddle out!!!
It’s always a “Holy Shit” moment to view the OB big days from atop the ice planted dunes, visualizing your perfect, quick slot you’ll be paddling thru, only to get down to sea level and realize THAT’S not gonna happen… 45 minutes later your still getting pummeled, just hoping for a 30 second break in the intervals.
Mark and I hung together for the first 10 or so minutes of the paddle out, but when I finally made it out a half hour later, Mark was nowhere to be found.
I suddenly realized I was farther out that I had ever been at Ocean Beach...or ANYwhere I’d ever surfed!
The VFW Building, Sutro Tower… Everything looked like it was miles away; it felt like I could see down the Golden Gate into The Bay to Angel Island, that's how out in the ocean I felt...
And thumping, slow mo mounds were peaking everywhere.. it was HUGE.
And I was completely alone.
I just tried to breath... settle. I was scared.
But I stayed out there-I was actually kinda getting into the Fear Thing… trying to paddle into one macking peak, then another, but when it’s that big it doesn’t just let you in, you have to be in the perfect spot.
Finally I said, "screw this," and caught a "smaller" set wave (only about double overhead).. made it down the face, dropped to my stomach, put the death grip on my rails just as I was BLASTED by the lip that plunged top to bottom at my feet, exploding behind and on me. I held on thru the whitewater and was shot way out ahead of the foam.
It was actually one of those deals where you are thrown so far ahead of the whitewater that your board is up on a plane, then the board would actually slow down and start to sink before the next onrush threw me and the board out ahead of the foam again and again... rinse, repeat... I’ve never ever ridden a wave so far, on my stomach or otherwise.
It finally began to feel safe. I realized I’d gotten past that point where I might pearl or be dumped … rode that baby all the way into the beach... I actually rode up onto the sand.
And looking at me as if I'd just landed from Mars where two older couples strolling on the water’s edge, completely blown away that I'd emerged from nowhere.
THEN came the strange question I and many other Ocean Beach surfers have been in the position to ask themselves on days like this: "Where am I?"
I'd drifted/been swept some eight blocks south of where Doc Hazard and I paddled out from. I was closer to Sloat Street than I was to our middle beach area starting point... had to walk all the way back to my car parked on Noriega Street...
Tied my board to the racks and drove to Sloat, the only other place anybody could even get out, though even there it was with great difficulty. Sloat seemed mellow after what I’d just been through, and all the guys were out, including Doc Hazard, who later told me he'd given up at Noreiga.
So, I got out and Doc didn’t… That will proudly go on my Lifetime Resume.
That was the year Renneker “inducted” me into his DOA Club (Double Overhead Association)… and I guess that day I earned it…in the Increments of Fear Department if nothing else. Because I’ve never been so scared in my life as I was that day, alone, a LONG ass way off Noriega Street.
Wow, that's quite a story! Right out of Barbarian Days. Thanks for sharing!
@@agelessathletepodcastyes, I missed Finnegan’s New Yorker story by about a year; left SF in June 1979 for my first post-college TV newsman job on Guam (and yup surfing was a major motivator to move/work there!)😊
Wild! I made it out on an enormous day at OB last winter (late 2023), got caught by a set, broke leash & had to do the pummel// breathe circuit all the way in. It’s an Incredibly demanding surf spot sometimes.
@@danielroberts2888 it is a good thing you are an excellent swimmer bro because all you can do is go with the flow in a heavy situation like that … but what a story you have huh?!
Ballsy man!
Doc, I'd love to see a documentary made about your life and surf career. Nobody would believe it except the people who know you. Hope you and Jessica are doing well.
Spent a lot of time on Tavarua with Doc, PeeWee and those OB boyz. One of the most interesting, intelligent men I have ever met and surely one of the most courageous watermen. Hope you're doing well Doc! BTW, your SF personality profile was pretty much spot on..
Wow! Great story told well! Stay strong!
your a legion, great to seeyou charging still
I would’ve been constantly thinking about sharks. But yeah that is crazy to be out there by yourself in surf that big, a mile or so offshore. Wow. I understand it’s a personal challenge. Highly respectable.
Good on you all regardless of where you are just now. Cheers!
Inspiring - I'm just trying to make it back out there at 53 - into head high surf
Yeah! don't stop
I remember Stan Ross charging out there with a neoprene inflatable mattress back in the day when nobody knew , before it was called Mavericks
No way, an inflatable mattress at Mavs?!?! When was that?! Pre J Clark ?
@@agelessathletepodcastRoss's Cove is a left next to Mavs. Watched Ross and friend surf big VFW (Ocean Bch SF) in 70 or 71 on air mats. Their trick was to swim out with mats deflated, so they could dive under the waves on the way out, then inflate them out past the break for a single big ride in. Classic.
@@davidgough3512 Wow, great story and neat trick to get out on big days at OB!
Here in Australia there was an old guy back in the 1990s who was surfing 8-10 foot Bells Beach at the ripe old age of 98. I only knew him by his nickname, Old Greg. He started surfing back when he was in his early 80s. Story goes that some locals back then didn't want him out there, so they were hassling him in the lineup. One of these locals was the CEO of Rip Curl. Well, Olg Greg got out of the water and slashed each of their tyres, one by one. The whole thing went pretty ugly because the police got involved, but I always respected him for what he did. I am pretty sure he died at 102 or something ridiculous like that.
Heck of a story. RIP Greg, you charger!
73 .!when u look back in judgement of a surfing longevity is part of the geometry.veryKool#
Lesson: NEVER paddle out to a place your not prepared to swim back from
A very important lesson to remember. The question is, in what condition you will be in when or if the time comes. I remember surfing waves a few feet overhead and my leash broke and it was a long swim. My problem was I inhaled a lung full of water when I went down. Couldn’t get a breath at all at first then slowly could get a little air after a while. Not fun and scary, never will forget that one.
Huge respect. ❤
Mark Renneker should be the one with a podcast cause the guy hosting the interview can't even respond to anything he says without tripping on words for 3 minutes.
Fair enough. This was my early podcast and hopefully I've improved 🙏🏾
@@agelessathletepodcast You did great 🔥 - I can't take podcasters who talk or interrupt there guests - you have skills and good instincts here -
Man the host has no idea 😂
Pee wee is quite a story also, another local legend.
Please tell Doc Chris Paulson says Aloha from Hanalei, 40 years ago left the city, still surf everyday
Respect ✨🙌🏼🤙🏽
Dude is a stud
Hi Doc !
Wonder where the spot is
Dont give up the spot please!
F
❤
Legend
Awesome... expensive last wave... 👍🏽🍻
Indeed!
lol ! I am 72 yrs surfing south of Bells . It gnarly and a better challenge than QLD soft and playful .
Amazing dude!
Legend!
Heavy story
I want to be that bloke
Experience you can't buy.
Adventures you don't pay for
Life is unfair. I’m in my mid 60s and haven’t been able to surf for over a decade.
Fabulous interesting story….
That’s a monster of experience to tread into those waters…. A calming situation with GODS CREATION….. it really is… thanks for sharing a memorable experience of another world…..THE MAGNIFICENT SEA!!!!🌊🙏👍