PEAHI, Maui � Renowned Maui waterman Archie Kalepa was injured Monday during a monster surf session at Jaws off Maui�s northeastern coast.

Kalepa seriously injured his left knee when he was slammed by a 40-foot wave while tow-in surfing with partner Buzzy Kerbox.
�I was too deep, too far behind the peak, and there was no place for me to go,� said Kalepa, who also is the county�s ocean safety supervisor. �It broke in front of me and I tried to outrun it as much as I could but the whitewater caught up with me.�
He said 25 tow-in pairs were jostling for waves as high as 50 feet.
�It definitely was the biggest we�ve had in the last four years. There were a lot of new guys out there and guys from back in the old days, when if we had five (personal watercraft) out there, that was a crowd,� Kalepa said.
Tow-in surfing, in which a surfer is pulled into large, fast waves by a personal watercraft, was pioneered at Jaws in the early 1990s by Kerbox, Laird Hamilton, Dave Kalama, Darrick Doerner and other members of �Strapped Crew,� named because of the foot straps on their boards.
Only the largest winter storm swells approaching from a certain direction generate extreme surf at the deep-water break. Although the sport has spread to other big-wave spots around the world, Jaws remains renowned for its clean, well-formed tubes.