by Heidi Trilling

Jeff Clark at Mavericks Surf Shop, Princeton.

For most people, living well means taking it easy and avoiding situations of perilous high-risk. For Jeff Clark, it’s just the opposite.

Champion surfer, master surfboard shaper and genial media personality, Clark was the first to surf the treacherous waves at Mavericks for 15 years — solo. Surprisingly, he likens surfing there to the peacefulness of meditation.

“Ever hear that old adage ‘one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor’? It really comes into play at Mavericks,” Clark says. “Lots of guys paddle out there at their maximum stress level. But I’m at my maximum stress level when I’m surfing 3-foot waves in a crowded surf spot! I’d rather be half a mile offshore in 30-foot waves. That’s where I’m calm.”

Back on land, Clark is a powerhouse of activity. He owns Mavericks Surf Shop in Princeton, filled with his custom-made surfboards, official Mavericks merchandise, and a gallery of remarkable surfing memorabilia. (Treasures include his competitor’s trophy from a Quiksilver Big Wave Invitational in Memory of Eddie Aikau. Clark was one of a handful of invitees from California.)

He has participated in other worldwide surf contests, has appeared on TV, in several documentaries including the acclaimed Riding Giants, and has been featured in scores of articles and books. Clark is also a premier golfer and holds a championship title at Half Moon Bay Golf Links (which he will defend this September).

Jeff Clark with a blank.

In the meantime, Clark sponsors the local Half Moon Bay High School surf team, he crisscrosses the country for public appearances, and joins golf fund-raisers supporting the Boys & Girls Clubs, Make-a-Wish Foundation, and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, among others. He surfs with Kelly Slater and other celebrity buddies, and was in Cape Town for the Red Bull Big Wave Africa competition.

But Clark is best known for the quirky surf-breaks in his own backyard: the menacing swells of Mavericks. Located west of Pillar Point in Half Moon Bay, Mavericks came to media attention in the 1990s, when an incredulous public learned of the Waimea-sized waves just south of San Francisco — and that Clark had been surfing them for years. Thanks to Clark, Mavericks quickly became a big-wave epicenter.

“Without question,” writes Bruce Jenkins, San Francisco Chronicle sports columnist, and co-author of the superb Inside Maverick’s: Portrait of a Monster Wave, “he’s an innovator and a pioneer, the Sir Edmund Hilary of Northern California big-wave surfing.”

Jeff Clark sanding a board.

Clark founded and directs the Mavericks Surf Contest, a world-class invitational and California’s only big-wave competition. Invitees contend with the sheer force and magnitude of Mavericks, where wintertime swells can reach heights in the neighborhood of 30, 50, even 70 feet. There is also the sinister line of toothy rocks guarding the lagoon. Not to mention frigid waters and sharks!

“We all know we’re playing a dangerous game,” Clark says. “You have to believe in your ability, believe in your processing, believe in your decision-making. We’re fierce warriors, but … unless you can read the ocean and assess it, you can find yourself in trouble real quick!”

Documentary filmmaker, writer, and annual Mavericks invitee Grant Washburn adds: “Mavericks is so powerful and intimidating. It’s a really wild frontier. And Jeff is really a frontiersman surfer. He’s a stand-out.”

The Mavericks season runs roughly from October to March. During this time, Clark waits for the sea to produce the contest-worthy waves that Mavericks warriors are hungry for. It’s the rarity of ideal surf conditions that makes Mavericks the Holy Grail for big-wave surfers. Once Clark makes the call — alerting the surfing community and media that surf’s up — invitees have only 24 hours to get to Half Moon Bay to join the lineup. So, how does Clark know when conditions are right?

That’s where Mark Sponsler comes in. Founder and surf forecaster of Stormsurf, Sponsler has provided forecasting consultation to clients such as 48 Hours and Nightline. “I’m the science guy, and Jeff’s the pulse of the people!” says Sponsler, self-taught meteorologist and big-wave surfer. “I pore through charts and data. Then we actually paddle out to see the results of our forecasts, to fine-tune them.”

Sponsler and his crew are able to predict to within one hour when giant waves will roll in. But he also gives credit to Clark for near-preternatural understanding of Mavericks:  “Jeff’s got an extra sense of that place: a mystical or X-factor sense. And that intuition really plays big into making the call.”

Mavericks invitee Washburn agrees. “We all get into the groove of Mother Nature out there … but Jeff has deep, subconscious knowledge of Mavericks. That’s the guru part of it. He’s completely in his element there, tuned into the energy and rarity of it.”

Clark is tuned into surfboard shaping, as well. He built his first surfboard around 1967, at age 10. By the time he was 17, Clark says, “I had over 50 different surfboards! I’d buy one used, fix it up, see what it could do … I was just so curious about what each board was capable of out there.”

Now, at 51, Clark is still curious. Over the intervening years between adolescence and adulthood, Clark worked as a contractor, and surfed, amassing uncanny knowledge of the local breaks. He honed his skills as an “ambidextrous” surfer, one who can switch stance from right foot forward to left — a rare ability among big-wave riders. Sports columnist Jenkins affirms this. “It is truly a titanic achievement, showing both guts and unusual skill.”

These combined talents, plus his continuing curiosity, have led Clark to become one of the world’s foremost surfboard shapers, with shaping rooms in Half Moon Bay, San Diego, and a new factory-direct showroom in Oceanside.

Clark’s Half Moon Bay shaping room is a narrow adjunct to his shop, painted outside with a groovy psychedelic mural of a Mavericks wave, and lined inside with “blanks” and finished surfboards.  “I shape every kind of board you can imagine: fun shapes like eggs for the beginner surfer, longboards, big-wave guns,” Clark says.

Precision-shaped by a master, they’re also fetching pieces of modern art, with spectacular, eye-catching palettes of colors. Like the green and yellow tie-dyed-looking Flying Fish, with its elegant logo designed by Clark’s daughter Katrina, a gifted graphic designer.

Chris Bertish, brand manager at O’Neill South Africa, and, dubbed “Cape Town surfing royalty” by the Red Bull BWA Web site, is emphatic about Clark’s shaping talents. “Jeff made the best board I’ve ever had in my entire life. One of those magic boards that changes the way you surf, forever.”

Jenkins writes, of Clark: “He is a consistently progressive shaper, always at the cutting edge of new design.”

Bertish agrees. “Jeff rides every shape he designs. He takes what he’s learned in regard to how the boards move and react in the water … refines the design, making very subtle changes, working out what makes a board absolutely fly, and translates that into a magic shape.”

Back at Mavericks Surf Shop, Clark greets customers good-naturedly. Like Paul Good, weekend surfer and union ironworker from Vacaville, who offers up this praise: “I’ve seen him in Riding Giants. There’s only a handful of big-wave surfers, and Jeff’s one of the best. It’s so cool that he’s behind the counter, too, ringing up my t-shirt!”