How does a woman from North Devon, a coastal region in southwest England, come to love surfing big waves? It turns out the Atlantic Ocean can turn this pristine coastline into an unruly frenzy. For a young adrenaline-loving goofyfoot, it proved a suitable entry point to test herself.
“My home beach is beautiful and super inconsistent,” said Laura Crane. “But when it’s on, you get smashed. And I’ve always loved that. I’ve loved feeling the energy of the ocean and trusting I’ll figure it out. Twelve-year-old Laura was a force. I just wanted to jump out of trees and do things everyone thought were crazy then.”
Young Laura showed promise as a surfer and landed sponsors in her teens. But when she came to Hawaii for the first time, she found there wasn’t much interest in her surfing the waves she’d seen boys her age riding.
“I was so stoked I was going to surf these waves,” she said. “Then I was told I was shooting bikini pics in a lagoon, and that was sort of where my big wave adventures stalled.”
And yet a decade later, Laura, now age 30, is one of the few women consistently towing into large Nazaré peaks and has entered the Big Wave Challenge for the second straight year. So what happened?
Laura had a strong base, but she gladly took a helping hand. Her success wouldn’t be possible without Eric Rebiere, a Nazaré vet who identified not just her physical strength, but her internal drive. Laura has long been open about her health issues in the past, her struggles with an eating disorder, and why she’s more comfortable with her body than ever. Eric, who met Laura when she was 17, saw her journey from afar and knew the best was yet to come.
“A big thing for me was to be proud of being a strong woman and hopefully inspire other women to achieve things that they can, but maybe are nervous about,” Laura said. “I think Eric saw that in me before I could. One day, he sent me a message and was like, ‘Hey, you’re training a lot, but what the hell are you training for?’ And it struck a nerve in me. I have this thing in me to just go. But I’m nervous. I’m nervous people won’t see me the way I want to be perceived. Or I won’t get the respect I think I deserve in this space. There was a lot of worry about what everyone else thought. But he put his arm around me and believed in me.”
With Eric instilling that belief, Laura spent her first season training and surfing Nazaré with him in the 2023-2024 winter. There was no halfassing it. Workouts, breath holding and her savings on a jet ski. All spent.
“It was huge for me to just be who I always knew I was,” she said. “I wasn’t doing it with sponsors, it was just for myself that first year. And whatever opportunities came after were just a bonus. I just wanted to be out there to surf big waves and nothing else.”
This past season, they focused on improving ski driving so she could trade off with a partner and help with safety. Everything came to a head one day in January on a swell that went sneakily under the radar. “Nobody thought there was going to be a swell,” Laura said. “And we got crazy good waves all day,” Laura said. “It was so sick to get waves with Eric and Justine (Dupont). It was basically just the girls out there.”
A massive left came Laura’s way. Her line was true. The ride helped her get her first invite into the WSL’s Nazaré contest the following month and her second entry into the Big Wave Challenge.
Stefan Matzke – sampics/Corbis via Getty Images
“A big part of it for me is to be Nazaré and not just go straight,” she said. “I’m trying to really read what the ocean’s doing and ride the most critical part of those beautiful beasts. That wave embodied all the things I’m working for. Presence in the moment, trusting yourself, your training, and equipment.”
Laura is still figuring out where the limits lie. At the tow contest in February, she broke her foot on a bombing set. But just by being there, she proved to herself she belonged.
“That day was incredible, regardless of breaking my foot,” she said. “It’s part of the journey,” she said. “You can’t go out in these huge, huge waves and think everything is going to be easy and perfect.
“It was a big day,” she continued. “All my dreams had kind of come true even before I put that rash vest on. There was a lot of emotion and excitement that I’d made it to a place where I’d been told I didn’t belong. So to put that rash vest on was huge. I’ll be back next year, for sure.”