Nazaré: the epicenter of big wave surfing and nature’s most formidable ocean challenge

Nicole McNamara (L) and Garrett McNamara (R) attend the Morrison Hotel Gallery's 75th Primetime Emmy Awards Celebration Honoring HBO's "100 Foot Wave" at Morrison Hotel Gallery on 13 January 2024 in Culver City, California. (Photo: Paul Archuleta/Getty Images).

By Craig Ray

18 Feb 2025

On Tuesday, 18 February 2025, the World Surf League gave the 'green alert' for the TUDOR Nazaré Big Wave Challenge in Portugal to start. Let the mayhem ensue.

Even if you only have a passing interest in surfing, the name Nazaré might sound familiar.

That’s because it’s widely considered the world’s biggest rideable wave, and is certainly the world’s biggest beach break, situated on Portugal’s Atlantic coast.

It’s the iconic setting for surfing’s mythical quest – a rideable 100-foot wave. No one has achieved that feat yet, and if it is going to happen anywhere, it will almost certainly be at Nazaré.

Winter swells coming in from the north Atlantic, coupled with Nazaré’s unique geography, create monstrous waves over the winter months, which until relatively recently were unknown.

The massive underwater Nazaré Canyon, which is situated just off the headland, starting about one kilometre offshore going out about 200km into the Atlantic Ocean, is the catalyst for these waves. The canyon is 4km deep at one point, but closer to shore it’s shallower.

Still, this quirk of nature allows the Nazaré Canyon to function as a “ripple polariser”, which allows waves to arrive at Nazaré’s Praia do Norte (“North Beach”) at high speed because they have not been completely slowed by shallower water.

The concept of “bathymetry”, the shape and depth of the ocean floor, has enormous influence on a wave approaching from the open ocean. The canyon creates a unique environment.

“Just as light waves and sound waves bend when they hit something or change speed — a process called refraction — so do ocean waves,” explained Sally Werner, an Assistant Professor of Climate Science at Brandeis University.

“When shallow bathymetry slows down a part of a wave, this causes the waves to refract. Similar to the way a magnifying glass can bend light to focus it into one bright spot, reefs, sand banks and canyons can focus wave energy toward a single point of the coast.”

The waves, while slower than they were in the open sea, still carry huge momentum and energy, and when they meet the gradient of the Praia do Norte shoreline, they emerge like terrifying monsters from the deep.

Between December and March, these massive swells funnel directly toward Praia do Norte, over the Nazaré Canyon allowing waves of between 50 and 100 feet to rise like skyscrapers within a few hundred metres of the shore.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3evYXrh86Ts

“As waves propagate toward shore over this canyon, it acts like a magnifying glass and refracts the waves toward the centre of the canyon,” Werner said. “This focusing of waves by the canyon helps make the largest surfable waves on the planet.

It’s both thrilling and terrifying, but provides an epic arena for the world’s best big wave surfers to showcase their skills.

Surfing mecca

In the surfing world, no one had heard of Nazaré, or Praia do Norte, until about 2010.

Big wave surfing legend Garrett McNamara is credited with “discovering” Nazaré, because he was the first to turn a spotlight on the quiet fishing town in 2011.

That year he rode what was later ratified as a world record 78-foot wave. The video of his ride made jaws drop around the world and inevitably led to a big wave surfing stampede to Nazaré.

McNamara had been contacted via email years before by Dino Casimiro, a local sports teacher. McNamara initially missed the email and its attending pictures.

Only several years later, when his wife Nicole was tidying up his mailbox, did she come across the emails. She immediately showed Garrett the images and the mail.

Kai Lenny surfs a monster wave in Nazaré, Portugal on 14 February 2020. (Photo: Mattias Hammar / Red Bull Content Pool)

French big wave surfer Justine Dupont during a session at Nazaré on 13 November, 2019. (Photo: Rafael G Riancho / Red Bull Content Pool)

Graphic of the Nazaré Canyon, which is situated just off the headland, starting about one kilometre offshore going out about 200km into the Atlantic Ocean.

They contacted Casimiro, and in 2010 the McNamaras made their first visit to view the waves from the natural headland at the old naval fort São Miguel Arcanjo. They were stunned.

The origins of surfing in Nazaré trace back to the late 1960s, when visiting American surfers first took to the gentler waves of Praia do Sul (South Beach) during the calmer summer season. However, Praia do Norte remained largely untouched due to its wild and unpredictable nature.

As the most recognised name in big wave surfing, it seemed McNamara had seen it all. Until he arrived at Nazaré.

“It was like finding the Holy Grail,” McNamara told the New York Times in 2018. “I’d found the elusive wave.”

It was certainly that, but it wasn’t as easy as putting on a wetsuit and jumping into the frigid Atlantic to ride a few waves.

McNamara immediately understood the elemental power of the wave and the vast energy of the ocean culminating at that point on Portugal’s coastline.

He knew it would require extensive planning and a deep understanding of the extreme conditions to ride the wave with some degree of safety.

The documentary titled the “100-foot Wave” McNamara made about his Nazaré “discovery” is brilliant viewing because it highlights the detail and respect he showed as he plotted rides and brought others there.

Competition

It took a few years but, inevitably, organised competition followed as more and more big wave surfers descended on Nazaré.

Today, the town has capitalised on the wave’s fame and refurbished the São Miguel Arcanjo and built a high performance training facility for its big wave surfers to use. Nazaré’s most famous surfers such as

McNamara and others have purchased homes and take up residency every winter, ensuring that they never miss a huge swell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJc4Ir78KdE

In the winter of 2016-17 the World Surf League (WSL) held its first big wave event in Portugal, the Nazare Big Wave Challenge. After a day of carnage the event — a strictly paddle surfing affair — was finally won by Australian Jamie Mitchell.

In 2017-18 it was Lucas Chianca who claimed glory, and in 2018/19 it was South African Grant “Twiggy” Baker who hoisted the trophy, though rumblings were growing stronger that perhaps it was time to switch up the format of the event.

In the winter of 2019-20 the WSL launched the Nazare Tow Challenge, a tow-in event featuring teams of two. Kai Lenny and Chianca came together as Team Young Bulls, and on the back of their insane winning performances a white-hot spotlight was shone on the stratospheric progression of tow-in surfing.

“Nazaré is, without a doubt, one of the biggest waves on Earth,” said the brilliant Kai Lenny, after his team’s win. “It’s an amazing playground and also one of the scariest places in the world.” DM

Additional reporting from Red Bull content pool.

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