Located about 20 miles south of San Francisco and featuring sharks, churning waters and massive waves, Mavericks is to many surfers what Mount Everest is to mountaineers. It's the biggest. It's the baddest. It's a destination people travel halfway around the world to try to conquer.

Now, this fall, 14 of the top women in big-wave surfing will descend upon Mavericks to conclude a first-of-its-kind competition called the WickrX Super Sessions that features a heavy online component to help promote the sport.

The idea is simple, but unique: Take the top women in big-wave surfing, who are grossly overshadowed by their male counterparts, and have them use the Internet to share rides, bailouts and behind-the-scenes footage from their own respective home beaches around the world. Then, when the conditions are just right, likely in late November or early December, send out the call and have them all unite at Mavericks for one final competition.

At Mavericks, a purse of $55,000 will be dispersed for the day's top riders — as well as those who shared the most compelling content online in the lead-up to the grand finale. The goal is to give female big-wave surfers — who almost exclusively have to hold down full-time jobs to support their world-class wave riding — a new professional outlet, as well as added exposure.

Allison Arvizu is among more than a dozen top women's surfers signed on for the WickrX Super Sessions. Image: AllisonArvizu

The content the surfers produce themselves will live on the WickrX Super Sessions site in addition to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Vine and Snapchat (username: WickrX) accounts. Surfers will share footage from the water, as well as technical advice about equipment and looks at their day-to-day lives.

Live-streamed roundtable discussions featuring some of the surfers, and the finale at Mavericks will be live-streamed as well. Fans who use the hashtag #WickrXSuperSessions online will be entered into a drawing to watch the Mavericks component from a boat near the massive waves.

The cause of promoting women's big-wave surfing is near and dear to the heart of Nico Sell, who founded the event and the Wickr messaging app. She was among the first pro female snowboarders before finding success in the tech world. The Super Sessions event is the debut of WickrX, which will stage and promote other events celebrating unusual, extreme and impressive human achievements.

"In a way, we're trying to emulate what Red Bull and GoPro have done," Sell told Mashable in an interview. "Up until now there wasn't really one place you could go to learn all about the women who do big-wave surfing. We want to be that definitive place."

Big-wave surfer and documentary filmmaker Grant Washburn will help produce the content created by the women in the field. On top of dispersing it through a range of social platforms, Washburn and Sell hope that giving peeks at the women's lives outside the water will help increase appeal.

"It has to be more than just a girl on a giant wave, as cool as that is," he said. "Explain to us why you're doing this. What does your mom think? What's it like when you're the only woman in the water with a bunch of men? Then when she does go out and get that big wave, we're more invested in it and the actual surfing becomes way more compelling."

Bianca Valenti is among the 14-woman WickrX Super Sessions field. She surfs at San Francisco's Ocean Beach and Mavericks, but is also a beer and wine buyer for her family's restaurant to make a living. She believes she and her peers are paving the way for future female big-wave surfers, much the same way snowboarders of both genders 25 years ago laid the foundation for it to become a relatively major sport today.

"Big waves and the people who surf them really inspire me," she said. "So I'm inspired to share what I do in my life, see what these other women do in theirs, and then all come together in one place at Mavericks."

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