Surfer Profile: Jamie Sterling

Highlights:
Third place Maverick’s Surf Contest 2008, fourth place Red Bull Big Wave Africa 2006, Surfline Best Performance Award 2006. 10th place in 2002 Quiksilver Eddie Aikau 4th place 2003 Hansens 6th place in the Red Bull BWA 2003

  Sterls is one of those guys on a mission. This is evident whenever he paddles out at Dungeons. He is a livewire on his gun, catching every single wave in sight, ramping over boils, going left, cheering people onto waves, screaming and shouting and full of energy.  It’s the same on land. Full of energy and always keen for a surf. His mission is to surf the biggest waves he can, and win some contests along the way. “I want to win the Quiksilver Big Wave Invitational, as well as the Red Bull Big Wave Africa events. To secure some footage with the mags along the way would be good.” What else is part of his mission?
“Well, I want to travel the world in search of perfect waves, and to document my trips.”
Jamie has been a stand-out at Dungeons since he started coming here in 2001, and has always stood out in the water often amongst more experienced surfers. It’s his youth and exuberance that gets him through so many situations. When a big set arrives and he’s on the spot, he goes. If it’s a left, he goes left, if it’s a barrel, he pulls in. Same at Waimea. Deep take-offs, behind the boil, deeper than everyone in the water. always impressive to watch.
“I know death is a factor in surfing big waves,” says Sterls. “I just do all I can to prepare my body for it if something goes wrong. You need to be in the best physical shape possible to attempt these waves. Knowing that I am right now, I just want to ride the biggest waves in the world.”
Sterls favourite waves are Pipeline, Teahupoo, Phantoms, Waimea and Jaws, with most of then being Hawaiian waves. obviously a good place to train and get into the big stuff, as well as a good base for basic surf skills. Sterls has a goal of winning this event. He has been surfing Dungeons for so long he knows the wave well, possibly even better than some of the local surfers. Give him half a chance to hook into a few of the big ones in his heats and the goal could very well be accomplished.
 

When Jamie Sterling was first invited to the Red Bull BWA, in 2001, he was a precocious 19 years old with a serious bent for surfing big waves. Year by year, Red Bull BWA after Red Bull BWA we’ve seen the young Mr Sterling grow into a complete and competitive big wave surfer. Whereas before he used to charge everything he could scratch himself into, nowadays his experience ensures that he’ll be sitting the deepest, trying to back door the Dungeon, and get in some deep, backhand carves on the face.

At the age of 26 the goofy-footed North Shore local lives 'the endless winter', chasing big storms around the globe. From his home on the North Shore of Oahu in Hawaii, he is a regular invitee to surf the Eddie Aikau at Waimea. He has made a name for himself charging the sickness of Teahupoo in Tahiti. In between he’s adventure surfing the world from Puerto Escondido, Mexico to the Gold Coast of Australia. And every year he comes to Cape Town and every year he charges. Now it’s not easy to surf the Dungeon on your backhand, but Jamie is well known in Hawaii as being one of the best backhand big wave surfers around.

I remember on one of the marginal days at the Dungeon. The waves weren’t consistent enough to call it, but certainly big enough when they came through. All the surfers were umming and aahing on the boat and suddenly Jamie bursts out from below like a flash of neoprene and just launches himself over the edge of the boat with his board and simply paddles into the line-up. He paddles deep, all the way to the back and just as he gets there, this macker arrives. Jamie swings his gun around strokes twice and takes off on this quadruple overhead bomb, like he’s surfing at Long Beach. Making it look so easy on that clean, mean monster. He slides all the way down the huge, arcing face, draws a long bottom turn and kicks it back up to the top and cuts a chunk of Atlantic into the air. No panic, no fuss, no thoughts about the 'wildlife' lurking underneath. Just surfing, like he was born to do it. Suddenly everybody on the boat is stretching on the neoprene, doing their little warm-up rituals, throwing their boards over and jumping in to get some.

Jamie is in fact big wave surfing royalty. Hawaiian surfing legend, Ronnie Burns was a father figure to him, and engaged to his mom, before he passed away. Gary Linden shaped his first gun and took Jamie under his wing when he was 15 and started pushing him to surf bigger waves. Occy looked out for him, like an older brother.