| Sultans of Surf |
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Page 4 of 7  As with everything he does, Dayton’s methodical and calculating about surfing. He’s not out there to commune with the sea. He’s always trying to improve, breaking down exactly what he’s doing—and what he’s doing wrong—and then figuring out how to do it better.“There’s so much science in surfing,” says Dayton. “You’re riding a wave form—what other sport lets you do that? You can surf a wave that traveled over 6,000 miles, and there will never be another wave like it. I love that. That’s what made me drop snowboarding and forget other sports altogether.” In between waves at Sultan’s, a right-hand reef break in the middle of the North Male atolls, Dayton huddles with Peak, 13 years Dayton’s junior and a lifetime surfer. Dayton’s looking for advice on how to improve his style, listening with an intensity and thoroughness you’d expect from someone being told how to defuse a bomb. “I’m one of those guys who is really into the details. I’m a perfectionist. I notice weird things like the spacing between the letters of a headline or the font,” Dayton tells me. “And the more I surf, the more detail I see. Little elements start to open up to me, things I never saw, like what’s happening with the wave and what’s happening with the environment. I’ll notice the color of the water or the feeling on my fingers as I’m touching the face of the wave. In surfing, you want to catch the wave—that’s the main point. But it’s the details that make it so enjoyable.” Most afternoons and evenings the gang plays Texas Hold ’Em. The game requires a $300 buy-in, and play ranges from good-natured to vicious. Since poker is mostly a game of bluffing, Dayton seems to relish the challenge of playing against professional actors. Otherwise the nonsurf agenda includes eating, napping, and getting a rubdown from Sumi, our onboard Balinese masseuse. Each evening after dinner, the group relives the day’s waves and wipeouts during a slide show put on by the professional surf photographer the guys hired to shoot the group. Afterwards, the guys hang around in the lounge, listening to Balfour pick at the guitar and playing poker or Take Two, a fast-paced game of Scrabble. Curiously, at about 8 P.M., Dayton disappears into his suite. Turns out he’ll spend most nights on his GSM phone, whittling out the sale of Business.com, a venture he created with ex–Disney exec Jake Weinbaum. Back in 1999, industry pundits mocked the pair for purchasing the domain name for more than $7 million. But he and Weinbaum (who Sky insists did the heavy lifting) will have the last laugh as they eventually negotiated the sale of the business—Sky working from a surf charter in the Indian Ocean—for $350 million. |
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