Did Cam Richards Just Bag The Wave Of The Winter?

Cam Richards is from Garden City Beach, South Carolina. 

While SC’s neighbor to the north (North Carolina) enjoys the east coast’s best and most consistent surf, the Palmetto State is known for its pervasive flatness. 

Despite this, Cam, who is 23, has shown remarkable promise in waves of heft. 

Earlier this year at the Volcom Pipe Pro, Cam earned himself a finals berth thanks to a number of incredible rides, including this 10 at Backdoor. 

He ended up getting fourth behind Josh Moniz, Jamie O’Brien, and Weslley Dantas.

Today, Cam further solidified his Pipeline legacy with one laughably stupid tube. It might just be the wave of the winter. Here’s what happened:

Rolling into a Second Reef bomb on his father’s hand-shaped 8’0, Cam shuffled his feet forward and entered the belly of the beast. Air-dropping out of the first section, Cam somehow landed on his toes and was able to scoop under the next curtain, which had been turned soupy and white by a previous wave. Somehow surviving that section, Cam leaned up once again to enter the stretching end bowl, which thanks to some extra-paternal encouragement Cam was able to navigate to the channel. 

“I just kept thinking, ‘If I come out of this, my dad is gonna freak’,” Cam told Stab. 

When asked about his board choice, Cam revealed that he was inspired not only by his father Kelly, but also by Hawaiian ginger-supreme, Mark Healey. 

“I was in the lineup when Healey caught his roll-in last night,” Cam said. “I was just like, ‘Dang, that looks fun’, and I was also sick of getting cleaned up, so I decided to take out my 8’0 this morning.”

Seasoned east coast shaper Kelly Richards made Cam the board when he was 19, which makes the wave even more special.

“My dad didn’t really react when I called him about the wave,” Cam revealed, “but I just sent him the clip and now he’s kinda freaking out.”

If that’s not a fairytale ending.