The Wedge, at the southeastern tip of Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, is a famed bodysurfing break known for huge, erratic waves and exceptional danger. Its surf was created unintentionally when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers strengthened the West Jetty in the 1930s, causing reflected swells to collide with incoming waves and produce steep, powerful surf that breaks in shallow water. The jetty project grew from George Rogers Sr.’s campaign for safer harbor conditions after his son George Rogers Jr. drowned there in 1926. Since the 1950s, The Wedge has become a Southern California icon, celebrated by expert riders and spectators despite a long record of serious injuries and deaths.