Lickle towed Hamilton into a wave, the second of a mountainous five-wave set. "The bomb set of all sets," as Lickle described it. A huge wall of water. "I'll say 40-foot Hawaiian," Lickle said. That's an 80-foot face.
"He was riding the wave, and all the sudden he kicked out and I'm like, 'Oh, my God,'" Lickle said.
He raced the Jet Ski toward Hamilton.
"We'd had a pretty clear zone to get out, but the area where we normally get out was all white water. A 20-foot closeout," Lickle said. "We realized we weren't going to make it, and eventually the thing caught up and just annihilated me."