Watch: You Can’t Get Hurt At Your Homebreak, Right?

If you’ve traveled around the world to surf, you know how scary an unknown three-footer can be. Meanwhile, at your homebreak, a mutant six-footer can seem all too agreeable.

It’s more about familiarity than it is objective danger.

Which is why, when Jordy Smith returns to Durban, he surfs like his pants are on fire. Inhabiting hallways that a Jeep Wrangler could drive through, bashing over-vert end sections, and creeping beneath doggy-doors that weigh half a ton.

But occasionally, our homebreaks make us a little overconfident. We ride this high until our arms ache and our joints grow tired, which is just the moment when injuries tend to rear their ugly heads.

In this instance, after stuffing a multitude of sand-bottomed pits, Jordy bit off more than his ligaments could chew on what he believed to be the “wave of the day”. Hustling deep behind the curtain, Jordy saw a speck of light at the end of the tunnel and thought, “I can fit my 6’3 frame through that.”

That was the overconfidence speaking.

Jordy got lipped in the back, his knee hit the deck, and the South African’s 2021 Olympic and World Title hopes were dashed with one slam of the guillotine.

This episode of O’Neill’s ‘Silver Linings’ features some of the best foam-wrangling we’ve seen from Jordan Michael, and an injury that almost turned him into a longboarder. Thank god he’s better now.