Tom Carroll/Byrne Tow-In Surfboard

In the early 1990s surfers in Hawaii shattered the limits of big wave surfing by working with partners on jetskis to tow-in to waves that had previously been seen as too big to catch, let alone ride. Needing to travel at speeds of 35 to 40kmh to successfully ride mountainous waves, surfers quickly learned that the long-held theory of bigger waves demanding bigger boards was wrong, so tow-in boards shrank to become much thinner, shorter and heavier (due to extra fibreglass for strength) than boards for waves below five metres (15 feet) high. Australia’s 1983 and ‘84 world champion Tom Carroll, who had retired from fulltime competition at the end of 1990, added a new chapter to his stellar career in his late 30s and early 40s by partnering fellow Quiksilver team rider Ross Clarke-Jones to tackle new big-wave locations, all recorded in a documentary series called Storm Surfers. This is one of the tri-fin tow-in boards Tom used, made by his long-term surfboard sponsor Byrne.