WHEN IT ALL GOES WRONG
Big wave surfing is not always about the glory and nailing the clip or the money shot. It’s not always about wrangling the bull successfully and being spat out into the channel giving you bragging rights to your mates.
Sometimes things go wrong.
A couple of years back things did go horribly wrong for Brooke Phillips during a session at his beloved Shipsterns Bluff in Tasmania; a terrifying wipeout that required a helicopter evacuation after a horror 45-minute jet-ski ride back to port.
Fortunately for Brook, his good mate Jimmy Mckean was on hand to rescue him. The following is the pair’s first hand account of the harrowing tale of what happens when it all goes wrong…
BROOKE PHILLIPS’ ACCOUNT
It wasn’t a big day by Shippies standards, probably 8-10 feet with a few bigger sets in the mix.
We’d been paddling in the morning but the tide filled in and it became too difficult to get an
