Professional big wave surfers are crazy people. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. I admire the hell out of them and wish I had their extreme level of confidence.
But really, you have to be a bit nuts to surf some of these waves. Even rolling around in an eight-foot wave is a terrifying feeling.
Well, let me introduce you to very crazy, very awesome person named Rodrigo Koxa. The 38-year-old Brazilian surfed an 80-foot wave. Yes, an EIGHTY-FOOT WAVE.
The record-breaking ride actually took place back in November at Nazare (Portugal), and it was announced as an 80-foot record-breaking wave at the Big Wave Awards over the weekend.
Here’s video of the insane wave:
Congratulations Rodrigo Coxa, winner of the XXL Biggest Wave Award Photo: @rfarinox #surf #gobigorgohome #bigwaves #bigmama #surfing #BigWaveAwards #surfers #wsl pic.twitter.com/z64SMUYt4i
— The Surf Slab (@SURFSlab) April 29, 2018
And here’s what Koxa had to say about riding the wave, via Surfline.Com:
“I had an amazing dream the night before. Where I was talking to myself, ‘You gotta go straight down. You gotta go straight down.’ I didn’t really know what it meant. But I figured somebody was talking to me. When I got my wave, I let go of the rope, I started to use my rail to angle towards the shoulder, but then realized, if I used my rail, I’d never get deep. And then I remembered: ‘go straight down.’ When I said it, I remembered my dream. I turned and I almost fell, but then I got my feet again and went super fast. I’ve never had a big wave like that where I didn’t use the rail at all. Just went straight down. It was amazing.”
The wave broke the previous record of 78 feet surfed by Garrett McNamara at Nazare in 2011. Here’s video of that insane ride, with McNamara talking about how amazing the experience was at the end of the video:
