Like an invading swarm, hundreds of the world’s most daring big wave surfers have descended upon Nazare, the famous Portugal wave location. A recent surge in the Atlantic produced monster-sized waves that came crashing into the coastline. Six years ago, American pro surfer Garrett McNamara caught the largest wave recorded at Nazare in 2011. He told Surfline, “”A hurricane force low (given the name Ewan) was rotating off the coast of Greenland this past weekend, and unleashed the strongest swell of the season toward Europe.”
Italian surfer Francisco Porcella rode a 24 metre (79 foot) tall wave for more than 30 seconds with many cheering on the shore. McNamara was more cautious, “I’m just here helping everybody…you wanna make sure everyone’s safe.” Unfortunately, as the video below shows, not everybody was as lucky. Brazilian big-wave surfer Pedro “Scooby” Vianna was, according to GrindTV, “arguably one of the standouts on the giant tow-in session” before needing to be rescued by PWC rescue driver Lucas Chianca by what photographer Pedro Bala called “probably the biggest one of the day.”
Fatefully, the oncoming wave was too much for Chianca, his white-and-red Yamaha FZR SVHO (and rescue sled with Scooby in tow) being overtaken by the wave. The two were thrown from the WaveRunner and churned in the wash. Amazingly, the two weren’t terribly injured save for a few bruises. It was only a day later, during lighter conditions that Scooby suffered a head injury that required him being taken to the hospital. Big wave surfing is no joke folks. Just watch below:
