Surf

Intro

Big-wave surfing is the most extreme part of the sport. Riders take on waves the height of a multi-storey building, knowing a fall can hold them underwater for a long time. Two places define it more than any others today: Nazaré in Portugal, home of the biggest waves ever surfed, and Mavericks in California, the cold, heavy reef that shaped modern big-wave culture.

This article explains why these waves get so big, how the sport developed, who holds the records, and how surfers try to survive. All figures are from the sources listed at the bottom.

What counts as a big wave?

There is no strict definition, but the usual threshold is a wave face of at least 20 feet (about 6 metres). At that size, normal surfboards no longer work. Big-wave surfers ride either guns (long, narrow boards built to paddle fast enough to catch huge waves) or smaller, heavier tow boards with foot straps when they are pulled into waves by a jet ski.

Two ways to catch a giant: paddle and tow

For decades, the size of a wave you could ride was limited by how fast you could paddle. Very large waves move too fast to catch by arm power alone.

In 1992, Buzzy Kerbox, Laird Hamilton and Darrick Doerner introduced tow-in surfing: a partner on a jet ski pulls the surfer into the wave at speed, then circles back to pick them up. Suddenly surfers could ride waves that were impossible to paddle, on shorter boards of around 7 feet instead of 12-foot guns. By the late 1990s, surfers were riding waves over 50 feet (15 m). The reef at Jaws (Pe'ahi) on Maui became the centre of the tow-in era.

Then the pendulum swung back. On 18 January 2010, the Brazilians Danilo Couto and Márcio Freire became the first to paddle into waves at Jaws. Paddle-in big-wave surfing became the prestige discipline again, while tow-in continued for the very biggest days. Today both exist side by side, and Nazaré is where tow-in surfing reaches its extremes.

Mavericks: California's cold giant

Where and why

Mavericks breaks off Pillar Point, just outside the harbour breakwater near Half Moon Bay, about 20 miles (30 km) south of San Francisco. The wave is caused by an unusually shaped underwater rock formation. Sea-floor maps from 2007 show a long ramp rising towards the surface, with deep water on both sides. Swell arriving from deep water slows down over the ramp while the edges keep moving fast, so the wave wraps into a U- or V-shape and breaks with enormous force at the top of the ramp.

After strong winter storms, waves there regularly exceed 25 feet (8 m) and can top 60 feet (18 m). The water is cold, roughly 7–15 °C, the rocks are close, and great white sharks live in the area.

The name

In the 1960s, a group of local surfers, Alex Matienzo, Jim Thompson and Dick Notmeyer, surfed the inside of Pillar Point. They brought along a white-haired German Shepherd named Maverick, and the spot was named after the dog. Sources give different years for this; Wikipedia says March 1967.

Jeff Clark, alone

In 1975, Jeff Clark, then 17, paddled out alone on a day with waves of about 20–24 feet and rode the big left-breaking waves on the outer reef. According to Surfer Today, he went on to surf Mavericks almost entirely alone for about 15 years, because no one else believed the wave was worth the risk or would go with him.

December 1994

In the early 1990s, word spread and the world's best big-wave surfers came. Two days in December 1994 made Mavericks famous:

• On 19 December 1994, 16-year-old Jay Moriarity took off on a huge wave, was thrown from the top and fell the whole face. The photograph of that fall went around the world. His story was later told in the film Chasing Mavericks (2012).
• Four days later, on 23 December 1994, Hawaiian big-wave star Mark Foo fell on a wave of around 18 feet and drowned. He was found in the water hours later. Many believe his leash may have snagged and held him under.

In March 2011, the Hawaiian surfer Sion Milosky, 35, also died at Mavericks after being held down by two waves.

The contest

The first Mavericks contest was held in 1999 and won by Darryl Virostko. It was an invitation-only, one-day event that could only run when conditions were right during a winter window from 1 November to 31 March, and it went under several names, including Titans of Mavericks. The World Surf League acquired it in 2017, but after two cancelled seasons it was called off indefinitely in 2019, citing "various logistical challenges". The contest has not been held since.

Nazaré: the canyon and the record waves

A fishing town on a cliff

Nazaré is a fishing town on Portugal's Atlantic coast, roughly 120 km north of Lisbon. The big-wave beach, Praia do Norte, lies north of the town, below a headland with an old fort and lighthouse, which has become the world's most famous grandstand for watching giant waves.

Why the waves are so big

The answer lies under the water: the Nazaré Canyon, the largest submarine canyon in Europe. It runs about 230 km out from the coast and reaches depths of around 5,000 m. Its head comes very close to the beach.

Portugal's Instituto Hidrográfico and Surfer Today describe several effects working together:

1. Refraction. Swell travels faster over the deep canyon than over the shallower continental shelf beside it. The wave crests bend and converge at Praia do Norte, focusing energy there.
2. Constructive interference. Waves coming over the canyon and waves crossing the shelf to the north meet and add up into a single, larger wave.
3. Shoaling. Where the seabed rises steeply from the canyon onto the shelf, the waves slow, shorten and grow taller.
4. A current running against the swell. A current along the beach, flowing northward against the incoming waves and deflected by the headland, adds to the build-up.

The effect is strongest with swells from the west and northwest. The Instituto Hidrográfico's numerical simulations suggested that a 10 m wave offshore could grow to about 20 m off Praia do Norte. (For more on refraction and shoaling, see our article on the physics of surf.)

McNamara opens the door

Locals had always known the sea there could be wild, but big-wave surfing at Nazaré began in earnest when the Hawaiian surfer Garrett McNamara came to ride it. On 1 November 2011, he was towed into a wave measured at 23.77 m (78 feet), which Guinness World Records recognised as the largest wave ever surfed. The image made Nazaré famous overnight.

The records

Guinness now keeps a record for the largest wave surfed (unlimited), meaning towing is allowed:

The women's record belongs to Maya Gabeira of Brazil: 22.4 m (73.5 ft) at Praia do Norte on 11 February 2020, beating her own earlier record. She is also Steudtner's training partner.

Steudtner's record was confirmed in May 2022 after a long analysis. Measuring a moving wave is hard, so experts extracted frames from video, corrected them for camera position and angle, and used known objects (including Steudtner himself) to convert pixels into metres. Guinness itself notes that weather, camera angles and footage quality can all affect the accuracy.

Many surfers have claimed even bigger waves at Nazaré, but a claim only counts once it has been measured and verified.

The cost

Nazaré is not just a spectacle. In January 2023, the Brazilian Márcio Freire, 47, one of the "Mad Dogs" who had pioneered paddle surfing at Jaws in 2010, fell while surfing at Praia do Norte. His partner brought him to shore on a jet ski, but he could not be revived. Surfer Today described it as the first surfing death at the break.

The contest

The TUDOR Nazaré Big Wave Challenge is a one-day tow-in event run by the World Surf League when conditions allow, within a window from 1 November to 31 March. For the 2026/27 season it has a new format, with men's teams split into two semifinals and a final, and a women's final between three teams of rider and jet-ski driver. Nine teams are invited, including the 2025 champions Nic Von Rupp, Clément Roseyro, Justine Dupont and Lucas Chianca. According to The Inertia, Nazaré is currently the only event on the WSL big-wave schedule; the last WSL big-wave event held elsewhere was at Jaws in December 2019.

Nazaré versus Mavericks

How big-wave surfers survive

A big-wave wipeout is extremely dangerous. According to Wikipedia's summary of the risks:

• A fall can push a surfer 6–15 m (20–50 ft) underwater.
• They may have less than 20 seconds to reach the surface before the next wave arrives.
• Water pressure at depth can burst eardrums, and currents can drag surfers onto rocks or the bottom.
• The worst case is being held under by two or three waves in a row.

Surfers prepare with years of breath-hold and fitness training, and today they work in teams with jet-ski rescue drivers and water-safety crews. Inflatable flotation vests, which the surfer can trigger underwater to help bring them to the surface, have become standard equipment at big-wave spots. Leashes are debated: some believe a leash contributed to Mark Foo's death, while tow surfers use foot straps instead.

Lives lost

Big-wave surfing has taken the lives of many experienced riders, including:

• Mark Foo, Mavericks, 23 December 1994
• Todd Chesser, Oahu, 14 February 1997
• Peter Davi, Ghost Trees, California, 4 December 2007
• Sion Milosky, Mavericks, 16 March 2011
• Kirk Passmore, Oahu, 12 November 2013
• Márcio Freire, Nazaré, January 2023

Sources

• Wikipedia: Big wave surfing
• Wikipedia: Mavericks, California
• Surfer Today: Mavericks, interesting facts about California's big wave spot
• Sports Illustrated Vault (1995): The last ride, Mark Foo
• Wikipedia: Nazaré Canyon
• Instituto Hidrográfico: Why are the waves at Nazaré so big?
• Surfer Today: The mechanics of the Nazaré canyon wave
• Guinness World Records: A timeline of the biggest waves surfed
• Guinness World Records: Sebastian Steudtner surfs giant wave and smashes world record
• World Surf League: Steudtner sets Guinness World Records title
• Surfer Today: Big-wave surfer Márcio Freire dies in Nazaré
• Sports Illustrated: Surfing legend dies at Nazaré
• The Inertia: Nazaré Big Wave Challenge returns this winter with a new format