Dirty Old Wedge
1
(water running)
(ethereal music)
- [Voiceover] 1936, the
army corps of engineers
completed construction of the
west jetty
entrance.
It's intent was to protect and
shelter
but what this grouping of rocks
created
was something that no
man could've expected.
(rock music)
(waves crashing)
- The Wedge in one word, psycho.
(Entrance Song by The Black
Angels)
- That wave is a
standout, freak of nature.
- The Wedge has as much power as
any wave
I've ever surfed in my life.
breaks necks
and you go, sh*t.
Bending time feeling fine
Entrance song
Entrance song
- It's the most famous body
surfing wave in world, duh.
- When you talk about this
mysterious place the Wedge
you finally go down there
and it's just all hell breaking
loose.
- It was a venue and it was
like a gladiator pit arena
watching a few of us pretty
much like risk our lives.
Rolling fast down 75
Cutting through like a knife
- [Voiceover] The wave was the
reason all of us were there.
It wasn't anything more
than that, it was the wave.
(water rushing)
(gentle, piano music)
- [Voiceover] My name is Ron
Romanosky.
Some call me Romo.
I'm a shaper, a photographer,
one of maybe, I don't know,
three or four billion of them.
And I'm a hopeless and
insufferable Wedge addict.
(pencil scraping)
jetty construction was over.
There was already an established
group of guys at Wedge.
Fred Simpson and Roger
Goodan were among them.
(plucky, guitar music)
- When I first went to the
Wedge,
this would be in the late 50's,
there were no crowds.
There were no lifeguards.
A max crowd would
be three, four,
five people.
There were always enough waves.
Wedge and starting meeting
were riding it already,
there was one gentleman
that I already knew.
He was the first high
school kid to swim faster
than two minutes in the 200.
And he did it in ninth grade.
- The wave physics at the Wedge
is unique
for a couple of different
reasons.
Firstly, that you have
the wave that is coming in
from the south.
and so you end up with a side
wave
being superimposed on by another
wave.
So you have two waves
on top of one another.
- It essentially doubles
the height of the wave
and it is as big as it gets on
this coast.
- It was routinely all body
surfers.
Surf boards were too long and
too heavy
to be able to handle the big
surf.
And, to be able to experiment
with different techniques,
it was really remarkable
because we got a lot
of riding in.
It was very, kind of
egalitarian, sweet environment.
- [Voiceover] No
magazines, no social media.
People communicated on
phones, land line phones.
Those early days at Wedge
- [Voiceover] In the
early 70's Danny Kwock
was on the beach, I
believe, but I don't believe
he had yet gone in that water.
- First experience at the
Wedge for me was
I'd moved from
Gwaii, I've kind of
always heard about
it
cause I grew up at
a place by Sandy
Beach.
The guys down there,
the kind of guys like Mark
Cunningham guys
that were like the
legend body surfer guys,
they'd always be talking about
the Wedge
and it was this infamous
place, even in Hawaii as a kid.
And then I moved to
California and we ended up
in Newport Beach.
I all of a sudden knew like,
this must be where the Wedge is,
I think,
it's in Newport Beach, you
know, I don't know where.
I mean, I didn't know it
was right by my house.
there and hanging out
and that was pretty much it, you
know,
at the Wedge at the time.
It was just a mixture of the
local kids
and there was Romo.
there,
come down,
because Romo was pretty
much like (mumbles) get out.
(machine buzzing)
- [Voiceover] Some time in the
mid 70's,
never seen them before,
blond haired, long haired,
but they rode well.
They had respect for the guys
This new group of guys would
become to known as Wedge crew.
And Mel Thoman was its leader.
- My first experience
coming down to the Wedge
I think I was 14 or 15.
I think anybody who comes down
first
thinks it's gonna be big.
It's the Wedge, it's gonna be
big,
you've just heard stories.
I got there and it was like one
foot.
So, 60 miles one way,
one foot, not too happy.
was 1975
and it was June, solid southern
hemi,
and it was, it was a good size.
And I remember standing on the
beach for an hour and a half
and I watched the guys
who I could tell they knew
what they were doing, they were
ripping.
And I thought I was pretty good.
And I get down there and I go
(laughs) I got a lot to learn.
- There was this one
summer where Mel Thoman
and Greg Deets and these
guys just rolled out
of this cheesy van that
was just so hideous.
And at the same time,
was down there too.
Us kids were like, oh, who are
these guys?
Ya know, but then they
and they'd get there at freaking
7:
00 AMand they'd leave at like
seven o'clock at night.
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"Dirty Old Wedge" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 24 Apr. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/dirty_old_wedge_6964>.
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