On its biggest days Nazare is a kind of Gothic horror show, complete with an ancient fort, sheer cliffs and gloomy, towering teepees that jut out of the ocean like giant, jagged teeth. It’s the sort of wave I always imagine Dracula surfing with a trailing cape.
However, at first glance last night’s much hyped tow event somehow seemed to be caught in a kind of contest limbo. It was almost pretty, brushed clean by a stiff offshore that sucked some of the menace out of the wave. It was too big to really surf on, but not huge enough by today’s ridiculous standards to make you feel that something groundbreaking was happening
Mind you it was still worth staying up for. With the big wave events there is always that fear that you will miss something truly incredible and it never feels quite as dramatic when you watch it the following day on the highlights.
Aside from the soaring wedges created by bathymetric anomalies there were certain elements of the teams tow event with genuine novelty venue. Why were some competitors jamming huge clumps of tea leaves down their jerseys for good luck? I wondered if it would be dumped in a pot and brewed up later for a genuine taste of Nazare. Then there was the team of Kai Lenny and Lucas ‘Jumbo’ Chianca who insisted on starting every ride with a chop-hop because that’s exactly what you think about when you are taking off on a fifty-foot wave with a weighted board beneath your feet – a skateboard trick. It seems even in the tow events the pursuit of the all-important point of difference or ‘variety of maneuvers’ is key and Lenny and Chianca were happy to spin to win. Lenny is surfing’s diminutive surfing superhero, he speaks with the confidence of a breakfast TV host and can ride any form of surfcraft ever made (maybe not a goat-boat). When interviewed atop his ski in the lineup he explained in his plucky tone that the aim was to do the chop-hop as close to the descending lip as possible. Yes, it was all about critical surfing.
Just when it seemed the event might not have that one memorable wave, Pedro Scooby came out after the spit on a heaving left pit of unfathomable scale. The wave seemed to validate the whole endeavor in a single moment. Pedro’s wave was only trumped by his hyperbolic, post-heat interview in which it seemed he was auditioning for the part of himself in a movie about big waves. Hollywood could not have cast him better. Surfing needs more of Scooby’s unrestrained enthusiasm. His tow partner Nick von Rupp has his own well-publicized Vlog series but surely ‘Scooby Do Where Are You?’ is a show in the making. Only people who grew watching cartoons in the 80s will get that reference.
The commentary team featured the unmistakable Australian accent of Tracks scribe, Ben Mondy played against the best of Britain, Paul Evans. Once they
loosened up Mondy and Evans found the right mix of drama and humour. It was a welcome departure from the regular WSL webcasts, which, while generally being good, can start to sound a little apple pie American.
Big wave events always inspire a lust for schadenfreude. We don’t want to see anyone get hurt but there is nothing like a good wipeout to get you excited around midnight. Last night’s showstopper moment involved one of the jet ski drivers attempting a floater on a fifteen-foot shorey as he raced to the rescue of his partner. He more or less pulled it off but it was one of those moments where it seemed things could have gone horribly wrong.
In the end sleep won the battle before the final heat and I crashed out on the couch, fearful that I would dream of being caught inside by 60ft Nazare and drown. Thankfully I woke up in the morning to find Justine Dupont had weaved her way to a masterful victory in the women’s event while Kai Lenny and Lucas Chianca had claimed the men’s – it must have been the chop hops that proved the difference.
