Watch: Nazare Big Wave Challenge Highlights
The day started slow and small, by Nazare standards, and ended not-as-slow and not-as-small.
Westerly swells at Nazare, for those who don't know, miss the canyon refraction that makes Nazare what it is. Yesterday's swell was approx. 285°, so 15° off pure west, and the sideways wedge struggled to get going. The pure size...meaning the open ocean swell size, was also on the underside of proper Nazare.
Clement Roseyro won the Best Men’s Performance with Justine Dupont taking the Women’s Best Performance Award. Roseryo doubled up winning the Best Team Performance Award with Nic Von Rupp.
Comments
If that was all the highlights in 2 mins, I can’t imagine how boring it would of been to watch it live
I watched the whole thing live. Wasn't boring. But can understand not for everyone.
I get what you said in the comments about the size, allowed the surfers to engage with the wave rather than just the typical choose a line, hold tight and scream to the inevitable explosion and vest inflation. I also take what people say about nazaré being the one place where towing suits over paddle, burger waves and bathymetry that shifts take-off far and wide such that you have to hunt them; there is no 'spot'. That being said I didn't last too long.. enjoyed hearing UKers on the ski.. scottish lad stoked to get a guernsey..
Yeah those two were classic @base. Absolutely frothing and fizzing while everyone else had their serious heads on. haha.
Pretty sure they ran this comp in direct competition of the launch of The Natural Selection surf contest which aired today.
You'll have a hard time convincing me otherwise......
You might be right but it's worth considering that last year at Nazare was the worst season in many years - perhaps even since it's been popularised - yet they got to run the comp in late January.
It's now past mid-Feb and they were running out of time to run this year's version, so my guess is they pulled the trigger out of desperation.
Also worth considering that Red Bull is a major sponsor of both events and they ran concurrently on Red Bull TV, which cannibalised the potential audience.
Point being, it didn't serve Red Bull to run the Naz comp but they did anyway, which brings it back to my hunch about desperation.
Lol, is competitive surfing actually cursed ?
I’d watch hours of the wave pool over that.
Aside from a bad hold down, towing Naz looks like something an intermediate and up could do.
Two thumbs down.
The best part of Nazare is watching ski riders get hammered, sadly there was little of that.
Interviews with Von Rupp don't really thrill me either.
It doesn't matter what is run it is all so overhyped it becomes unbearable. WSL (Jon Jon, Medina, Slater and a couple of others) at Cloudbreak, J Bay, Pipe and Chopes exempt from this of course.
Baffles me that crew would rather watch a wave tub over this.
What have surfers become??
Tow in to a full on burger?
Towing onto fat mush burgers is boring.
Im lucky to witness the heaviest waves in the world regularly down here, and yet i still don't find watching Nazare boring. Not sure how big surf is ever boring.
Each to their own though. Clearly the unpopular opinion here...as usual.
Maybe it's a swellnet thing. Birds of a feather....
Well nah, if you go on stab, beachgrit, swellnet the common opinion is that Nazare gets boring very quickly to watch.
But you already knew that
Nice try though trying to make it a you against the swellnet commentary thing. You don’t always have to be the “lone crusader” southern!
Then why did i enjoy it Goofy?
Maybe the surf media/commenters are mostly one and the same.
You're a prime example of that :-P
A prime example of knowing what good surfing is?
I’ll take that! ;-)
Haha good on ya goofy. :)
Euro trash that never paddled in their lives getting towed into fat burgers while holding redbull cans up at every opportunity , horrible.
The very worst of both big wave and competitive surfing combined ...
Well done wsl
Generally my favourite part is watching the skis getting in and out and doing crazy pickups not sure why they showed nearly none of that
And yep wank SL curse continues for sure.
Maybe if they employed even just one person the check comments for a bit of a vibe check maybe they might see why most crew r becoming less interested in there favourite sport
Quote from Tikanui Smith..
"“@tikanuismith has towed Code Red swells at Teahupoo, so we had to ask: what’s scarier—Teahupoo or Nazaré?
“For me, Nazaré. I’m not scared of Teahupoo; I hope every time that it’s going to be bigger than Code Red. But here in Nazaré, it’s hell. Even being on a ski is already scary, with waves breaking everywhere."
But yeah, boring shit.
I think it's more that the surfers of the modern age have the attention span of a goldfish, not so much the waves.
But yeah, unpopular opinion which i can live with.
Yes, all those honest opinions of not liking Nazaré clips as entertainment are entirely valid. But, the surfers who love the spot aren’t a collection of kooks and scammers. They are core surfers and the wave is totally legit and the experience of being out there and riding those waves must be epic.
Spot on @wally.
Cheers.