Nazaré, Portugal isn’t a name known to most folks. It’s a small oceanside town not known for luxury hotels, casinos or really much at all. Well, that is unless you’re a big wave surfer. Through a confluence of underwater topography, oceanic currents and building thermal weather patterns, Nazaré sees bigger, more terrifying waves than any other location on the planet. It beats out famous Hawaiian locations like Jaws and Pipeline; the never-ending rollers crashing into Teahupoo, Fiji; and even monster sets way offshore of Baja California. No, it’s Nazaré.
A few years back a video circulated around social media – you might’ve seen it. It showed the same small coastal town – a rocky wall capped with a small white lighthouse sat in the foreground – as an almost cartoonishly huge wave rose in the background. Upon its face was the small figure of a surfer cutting a white swathe down its slope. That figure was big wave surfer Garrett McNamara. The eccentric athlete has been charging into surf like this for decades; but on this day he made history after surfing the world’s biggest wave.
Now wielding legendary status, McNamara is both emotionally and physically equipped to tackle the next big wave, thanks to his 2019 Yamaha FX SVHO WaveRunner. That’s right! Professional surfers employ personal watercraft to charge towards and quickly skirt away from these behemoths. More importantly, these machines are critical in rescuing a downed surfer before the next wave buries them under several hundred tons of broiling salt water. Watch the video below:
Surf Legend Garrett McNamara and the FX SVHO WaveRunner
TO SURF THE BIGGEST, you need the best in the business…Surf legend Garrett McNamara takes on the mighty waves of Nazaré in Portugal with some help from his FX SVHO WaveRunner…#RunTheWater
Posted by Yamaha WaveRunners on Monday, April 29, 2019
