YouTube / Guinness
Nazaré, Portugal has become arguably the hottest big wave surfing location on the planet over the past several years. Nazaré was certainly on the radar of the Big Wave surfing community before Garrett McNamara rode the wave you see below, but, this wave has raised the profile of Portugal’s now infamous waves to unimaginable heights.
Big Wave surfer and all around great dude, Garrett McNamara, actually rode this wave back in 2011. For whatever reason, Guinness World Records is just now getting around to certifying it as the ‘Largest Wave Ever Surfed’. Guinness World Records certified this wave as being 78-feet tall, and the largest ever ridden by a surfer:
Is it just me, or would this clip be 10000x better set to ‘Rooster’ by Alice in Chains? Seriously, hit play on this clip below and the one above at the same time, but mute the Guinness World Records version:
Wasn’t that a lot better?
With waves the size of skyscrapers, Nazaré is now home to one of the most exciting Big Wave Surfing events on the planet, the Nazaré Challenge. This year’s inaugural event *technically *ran from Oct 15, 2016 – Feb 28, 2017, but the actual event took place in late December.
These WSL Big Wave Tour events often span several months and overlap each other to give the weather ample time to cooperate. These events sometimes need 30+ foot waves in order to take place, and that may happen only once or twice a year, or in the case of an event like the Eddie Aikau Invitational, it might only happen once every couple of years. The 2016/2017 Nazaré Challenge was won by Australian Jamie Mitchell back in late December on a day which saw routine sets of 30-40 foot waves coming in.