Dirty Old Wedge

1

(water running)

(ethereal music)

- [Voiceover] 1936, the

army corps of engineers

completed construction of the

west jetty

of the Newport Beach harbor

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.

- I would say Hawaii power in

the middle of Orange County.

- And it kills people and it

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)

Our story begins at Wedge,

25 or so years after the

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.

- When I first arrived at the

Wedge and starting meeting

the different people that

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.

It banks up against the jetty

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

were really a simple time.

- [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.

I just started going down

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.

Then as I started growing up

there,

I realized why people didn't

come down,

because Romo was pretty

much like (mumbles) get out.

(machine buzzing)

- [Voiceover] Some time in the

mid 70's,

this group of guys showed up,

never seen them before,

blond haired, long haired,

but they rode well.

They had respect for the guys

that were there before them.

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.

But, a couple years later, it

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,

this other guy Terry Wade

was down there too.

Us kids were like, oh, who are

these guys?

Ya know, but then they

started coming every day

and they'd get there at freaking

7:
00 AM

and they'd leave at like

seven o'clock at night.

- We kind of made this little

pact

and we were the new guys, the

young guys.

- 77, that summer was the

year I really got to know

those guys really well and we

started hanging out together

and, no not getting in trouble.

Well, not getting caught I

should say.

- For some reason, it

became a very large group

that would go there every day,

whether there were waves or not.

The group was very united

and I think that's why

it became the Wedge crew.

I don't know who coined the

phrase

but it kind of started

in that min 70's era

where I came in at.

(upbeat, rock music)

(waves crashing)

(upbeat, rock music)

- You could tell right

away who the players were

down at the Wedge and you

just knew to stay clear

and just stay low.

- The Wedge guys saw themselves

as kind of rebellious,

non-mainstream and they regaled

in that.

- They had a lot of

commaraderie.

They became the locals.

They kind of like were jerks to

people

who weren't from here.

- You had all the guys in the

group,

thought the exact same way.

This is our wave and nobody

else is gonna mess it up

for us.

- There's definitely a

local Wedge crew and--

- [Voiceover] They don't like

anybody invading their turf.

- They don't like (laughs).

- When I first

went there,

everybody was,

it was

aggressive.

I mean, everybody had

their f***ing balls

out.

- For the Wedge guys,

yeah it is a little bit

of a different story because

that wave isn't about just fun,

it's about pushing yourself to

your limit.

(upbeat, rock music)

- The body surfer Wedge guys

were like water polo lifeguard,

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