The surf world’s focus, as of late, has rightfully been fixated on Hawaii.
A historically massive swell hit the islands; rogue waves were flooding lifeguard towers in the dead of night; Kai Lenny was busting flips at Jaws; and Kelly Slater cosigned a conspiracy theory that the swell was overhyped by surf forecasting websites.
But what about other big-wave hotspots? What’s been happening across the pond, and the sleeping giant that is Nazaré, which is poised for a crazy couple months, per the forecasted super El Niño season?
Well, Portuguese charger Nic Von Rupp snagged a freakishly large teepee in the minefield Nazaré lineup. Although the season is still so early, this has to be a contender for biggest wave ridden this year, or at the very least, most mutant in peaky terms.
Captioning the clip, as translated from Portuguese, Gigantes de Nazaré wrote:
“This day will stay forever in the memory of Big Surf
“Video with millions and millions of views!!”
A self-proclamation of this video going viral. Bold move. But perhaps warranted.
In fact, the wave is eerily reminiscent of NVR’s wave at Nazaré in November of last year. That wave earned the Portuguese surfer the honor of “Biggest Wave” at the inaugural Big Wave Challenge Awards held last month in (where else?) Nazaré, Portugal.
About the awards, event creator Bill Sharp said:
“Big wave surfing once again has a platform where the surfers, the shooters and the fans can all come together to follow the best the sport has to offer. I’m beyond stoked at how this first edition came together and how the surfers rallied behind it. This is just the very start of something great. And now that the first awards are in the can we can jump right back into it with the 2023-24 event cycle underway and El Niño expected to produce an epic winter.”
Stay tuned for more nuts Nazaré moments to come soon.
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