Getty Image / Stringer / Anadolu
Big wave surfers are cut from a different cloth. Riding the biggest and most powerful waves on earth requires a mindset of knowing it could all end in an instant and you’re putting your life in your own hands. Portuguese bodyboarder Pedro Levi is a member of the Nazare Big Wave surfing fraternity except instead of being towed into waves on his surfboard the dude is out there riding a bodyboard like a mad man.
Pedro Levi, a bona fide mad man, might now have something the rest of the big wave surfers at Nazaré don’t: a world record for the biggest wave ever surfed (on a bodyboard).
I’ve written about this here on BroBible in the past when it comes to surfing world records, but they’re more complicated than other world records because measuring waves is extremely difficult. That said, it’s quite likely that Pedro Levi has a bodyboard world record on his hands here simply because there just aren’t that many people at Nazaré, Jaws, Mavericks, etc. who are surfing on bodyboards.
Pedro Levi With Possible Bodyboard World Record For Largest Wave Ridden On A Bodyboard
This has been a monster season at Nazaré, the tiny fishing village about halfway between Porto and Lisbon on the Portuguese coast that has become the epicenter of the big wave surfing world over the past decade.
There’s an underwater canyon at Nazaré that’s shaped like a wedge and produces the biggest surf-able waves known to man, but on top of that, it happens so close to the shore that spectators can stand on land and watch these surfers and bodyboarders set world records. There was a massive swell on February 24th that many believe yielded a world record wave but the jury’s still out on that.
This two-year-old video from Vox is for all of the visual learners out there. It illustrates how the Nazaré canyon forms the biggest waves on earth:
Now, try to imagine riding one of those waves on a bodyboard. It’s absolute insanity.