Go Big is a big book that needs a little help: Editorial help choosing from a hundred years of big-wave surfing, the 40 or so Greatest Moments. And also financial help boosting the photo and research budget to make this book as solid as possible - and pay the photographers properly.

Big wave surfing has leaped to levels scarcely to be credited here in the 21st Century. Whether towing or paddling into those monsters, there is an elite group of big-wave surfers combining technology and guts motivated by thrills, fame and money, in the pursuit of that ellusive hundred-foot wave. 

Every winter season, the bar is pushed higher by gutsy surfers roaming the world, chasing down giant waves with their bare hands and machines: Jaws, Dungeons, Mavericks, Hawaiian outer reefs, Todos Santos and a hundred miles out to sea at Cortes Bank.

Big wave surfers are risking death for immortality - although if you asked, most would say they are doing it because They Love The Drop. Big wave surfers are essentially adrenaline/endorphin junkies who crave the physical, primordial challenge and thrill of chasing down waves, staring down the impossible drop, going and making it - or surviving the beating.

Or as Jock Sutherland once put it: "It's like chasing down a Tyrannosaurus Rex for dinner!"

Go Big: Greatest Moments in Big Wave Surfing will detail the evolution of big-wave surfing in 82 pages filled with powerful images and the stories that support them.

Much has happened in big-wave surfing going back to Y2K, but the full history goes back to the early 20th Century. A lot of surfers have risked their necks in the pursuit of big waves, and some of the Greatest Moments are slam dunk choices: 

       The Swell of '69 at Makaha with Greg Noll.

       The Unridden Realm day at Waimea in 1985: Foo, Bradshaw, Stewart, Alec Cooke.

       The 1990 Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau contest at Waimea Bay.

       The drowning of Mark Foo at Mavericks in 1992.

       Jay Moriarity's incredible wipeout at Mavericks in 1992.

       The innovation of tow surfing around 1992 by Laird, Buzzy, Darrick and friends.

       The K2 Challenge in 1998 and its evolution into the Billabong XXL Awards.

       Laird Hamilton's incredible Millennium Wave at Teahupoo in August of 2000.

       Mike Parsons' $68,000 wave at Cortes Bank in 2001.

       Garret MacNamara's balls-out barrel at Jaws in 2002 (still never been topped,              really).         

       In 2013, Shawn Dollar's 61-foot paddle in at Cortes Bank and Shane Dorian's XXL-        winning Ride of the Year paddle in and barrel at Jaws.

Evan Slater claims: "Shane's wave at Jaws is the greatest big wave ever surfed in the history of the universe. Don't forget that one.  Half of the entries should come from the last five years. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but so many barriers have been shattered since 2009 — don't brush over it. The paddle vest is the key."

The paddle vest is the key, but so are PWC, elephant guns of the 1950s, Tom Blake's olo, the leash - a lot of technical innovations over the years. Evan has his opinions and there are a lot of opinions on the key moments in big-wave surfing - because big-wave surfers are not shy with their opinions. 

Bernie Baker's heiau angle of Brock Little dropping into his $50,000 mistake during the 1990 Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau.

Go Big will need lots of opinions to condense over a hundred years of big-wave surfing into 80 pages, and feature the greatest photos ever taken in that long history of big waves.

Juicing up that photo budget is what this IndieGogo is about. The publisher who commissioned this book has set aside $XXX amount of dollars to fill 82 pages (the amount is classified).

But when it comes to photo budgets - the more the merrier. 

Any money raised by IndieGogo will be used to sweeten the photo budget and pay surf photographers from John Severson to Rob Brown to Tim McKenna to Brazilian Bruno Lemos top dollar for their photos.

And some of the IndieGogo might also be used for research, to pay Matt Warshaw to comb his Encyclopedia of Surfing files for background stories on the Greatest Moments.

Money buys speed and quality and this IndieGogo campaign is designed to help Go Big go as big as possible. 

It's going to be a cool little book.

A cool BIG book.

Mahalo for your kokua.

Bob Barbour's famous 1992 photo of Jay Moriarity launching into history at Mavericks.