Jay Moriarity

Jay Moriarity, surfer: born 16 June 1978; married; died Lohifushi, Maldive Islands 15 June 2001

Jay Moriarity made his reputation and carved his brief but glorious career out of mastering the feared K2 of surfing's big-wave breaks, Maverick's, in Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco.

Born in Georgia in 1978, the son of a skydiving Green Beret, he learned to surf at Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz, in northern California, at the age of nine. Moriarity achieved unintentional fame when, in the winter of 1994, as an unknown 16-year-old barely apprenticed into big-wave surfing, he paddled into a smoking 20-footer at Maverick's (some say 30ft), took off, hovered, and was pinned back to the face of the wave by an updraft, his arms outstretched, in a moment of crucifixion, before being flung down into the pit.

A photo of that spectacular wipeout with its impression of martyrdom made the cover of Surfer magazine, appeared on posters worldwide, and turned the teenager into a surfing icon. Four days later, with a smaller wave, Maverick's succeeded in drowning one of Hawaii's legendary big-wave surfers, Mark Foo. That death both secured Maverick's murderous status among surfing cognoscenti and spurred on Moriarity.

He was not only fearless, but methodical, working out religiously and paddling many miles on his board when the surf was flat, training every day to be in optimal shape for the few big days a year in which he was in his element. Almost a curiosity in the hell-raising circles in which he moved, Moriarity was well-known for his impeccable manners and his good works, and collected numerous sportsmanship awards. He received the accolade of a sponsorship from O'Neill wetsuits, making him one of the privileged few in the surfing community who do not have to compete for a living, or make boards, but merely be, and preferably be photographed while doing it.

When I met him he was teaching at the O'Neill Surf Academy in Croyde Bay in Devon, where he inspired my son not just to ride waves but to tolerate the freezing Atlantic. He too, he said, in the chilly northern Pacfic, had been "young and numb". Moriarity had an almost monastic other-worldly air about him, like a cross between Wittgenstein and Robbie Williams. He thought of surfing as a form of martial art: "A lot of the training is mental. You're learning to control your fears. You don't get to be black belt in a day." He proclaimed the importance less of style and bravado, than of discipline and knowledge. "You have to learn to read the water and its movements," Moriarity said. He had recently published The Ultimate Guide to Surfing (2001, with Chris Gallagher).

The irony of Moriarity's death, one day short of his 23rd birthday, was that it came not in the cold, dark turbulence of Maverick's, but in the calm, warm, glassy Indian Ocean, in the Maldive Islands, while on a photo shoot for O'Neill. As part of his strict training regime, he went free-diving with a Brazilian crew from the camp on the island of Lohifushi. Typically, he went further down the buoy rope than anyone else, intent on pushing his breath-holding ability to the limit. The last time he was seen alive, he was sitting contemplatively, on the ocean bottom, some 45ft down, in his trademark pose, his arms outstretched. A search party recovered his body late that night.

Andy Martin