Laird John Hamilton (né Zerfas; born March 2, 1964[1]) is an American big-wave surfer, co-inventor of tow-in surfing, and an occasional fashion and action-sports model and actor.

In 1967, while still a young boy living on Oahu, Laird met with 1960s surfer William Stuart "Bill" Hamilton, a bachelor at the time, on Pūpūkea beach on the North Shore.

[7] When he was 16, Hamilton left the eleventh grade at Kapaa High School to pursue a modeling career and work in construction.

In 2008 Hamilton announced his own "Wonderwall" line of affordable clothing, sold through Steve & Barry's[10] until that retailer shut down at the end of January 2009.

[11] By the age of 17, Hamilton had become an accomplished surfer and could have left modeling to pursue a career on surfing's World Championship Tour.

Bill Hamilton regarded surfing more as a work of art, rather than based chiefly on wave-by-wave ride performance scored by judges.

[12] An early attempt at media recognition was his quest to be the first surfer to complete a 360 degree loop while strapped to his board.

Stunts included: launching 30-foot (9.1 m) jumps on sailboards, then mating the boards to paragliders to experiment with some of the earliest kiteboards.

[13] In late 1992, Hamilton with two of his close friends, big wave riders Darrick Doerner and Buzzy Kerbox (also an occasional men's fashion model; Hamilton and Kerbox later lost their friendship over a property disagreement),[6] started using inflatable boats to tow one another into waves which were too big to catch under paddle power alone.

Using tow-in surfing methods, Hamilton learned how to survive 70-foot (21 m) waves and carving arcs across walls of water.

[citation needed] Hamilton has also experimented with the foilboard, an innovative surfboard which incorporates hydrofoil technology allowing a higher degree of precision and effectiveness of aerial techniques within the water.

Purist surfers have blasted him for this, but Hamilton calls it a return to the traditional Hawaiian way of surfing, as practiced by King Kamehameha I and his queen Kaʻahumanu almost three hundred years ago.

Hamilton's drop into Tahiti's Teahupoʻo break on the morning of August 17, 2000 firmly established him in the recorded history of surfing.

[17] On that day, with a larger than normal ocean swell, Darrick Doerner piloted the watercraft, towing Hamilton.

Pulling in and releasing the tow rope, Hamilton drove down into the well of the wave's enormous tunnel vortex, in full view of boat-based photographers' and videographers' cameras.

With his signature artistic flair, Hamilton continued deeply carving water, emerging back over the wave's shoulder.

[21] In February 2008 Hamilton joined the board of directors of H2O Audio, a watersports music company in San Diego.

Hurricane Marie caused Southern California to be hit with a swell of extreme size—triple over head (and larger) waves could be found from San Diego to Los Angeles, including Laird's home break at Malibu.

In April 2018, Laird made worldwide news for voluntarily rescuing people around Kauai, Hawaii from devastating, record-breaking storms that were causing flooding.

[25] Laird Hamilton is a co-founder and co-creator of XPT Life or Extreme Performance Training, along with his wife, Gabrielle Reece.

[28] Hamilton and Reece have been described as part of the "Malibu Mob", a celebrity group in the same vein as the Brat Pack.

[36] In the first round of competition, Hamilton matched up against tennis star Serena Williams and former NFL quarterback John Elway.

He appeared in the Sundance Channel television show Iconoclasts with Eddie Vedder from the popular American rock band Pearl Jam.

[38] A chapter about Hamilton appears in Scott Carney's New York Times bestselling book What Doesn't Kill Us.