Gary Linden is a legend. He’d probably cringe to hear it, but he is. He’s been quietly charging the biggest and baddest waves on the planet for a long time now. In his mid-’60s, he’s one of the most respected people in surfing, not just for his talent on a surfboard, but for his talent making them. He’s the vice-president of the Big Wave Tour, and he is walking the walk. For all his years of surfing, the man has been in some really hairy situations. The worst, he said, was at Pascuales, in Mexico. “I got out there and it’s the heaviest wave,” he remembered. “I lined one up. I got to the bottom and made the drop. The lip broke on my arm and knocked my shoulder into my jaw and just about knocked me out.”
While the wave above is at Puerto and didn’t break him into pieces, it’s still a very solid wipeout for a man looking into his 70s. Linden’s showing no signs of slowing, either, and everyone loves it. This wipeout was filmed by Alejandro de la Torre, and it’s been entered in the TAG Heuer Wipeout of the Year category of the 2016 WSL Big Wave Awards.
