Fabrizio Passetti lost part of his right leg when he was 18-years old. Having already developed a healthy love for riding waves, his life since then has been given to finding ways to continue surfing. He’s worked through the challenges that face adaptive surfers: he’s battled through amputation and infections, experimented with prosthetics, and found the right equipment that could accommodate it all. An obstacle is thrown his way and he faces it. That’s what makes characters like Passetti a source of inspiration.
“I saw Fabri riding barrels in Padang (Padang),” says big wave hellman Francisco Porcella. “He’s a great inspiration for me.”
Porcella and Passetti recently ran into each other again along their travels. This time it was at Wavegarden’s brand new Alaia Bay nestled in the Swiss Alps. Many a surfer has pontificated the impact wave parks have on the overall community. Here’s a fact: each time a new one pops up, Fabrizio’s visit sheds light on how manmade waves may impact the adaptive community.
“Once, surfing could have seemed an unattainable goal for a disabled person,” he said during his visit. “Now, with this Wavegarden you can adapt any disability to a certain kind of wave.”
It’s an interesting point to consider. While everyday surfers might look at wave pools as a place to get repetition, adaptive surfers are being offered safer places to learn, train, and ultimately prepare themselves for the unpredictability of the ocean — something that takes on a whole new world of meaning when you are doing it all without the use of a major limb.
Granted, for the guy Porcella first ran into getting barreled in Indonesia, a few laps in a wave pool are really just good, clean, old-fashioned fun.
