The world's biggest wave, explained

Key Takeaways

so right now we are going to the top of the lighthouse [Music] and then south of the lighthouse we have the main city of nazareth and then more north we have tried north the biggest faith in the world now here's something that you just have to see to believe you've got to see this the most amazing picture that we saw in the newsroom today has got to be this take a look at that surfer right there garrett mcnamara is the fearless surfer the wave is 78 feet tall that is taller than seven story buildings he is riding a mountain of water off the coast of portugal portugal that's in portugal right that moment made desiree a small town on the coast of portugal home to the biggest wave ever served and over the past decade many surfers have come here to make their own attempts at a world record even at the risk of their lives how can i explain it naturally right now it's the formal one of big waves but for a long time these waters weren't at the heart of an extreme sport they were driving an entirely different culture for centuries a culture that's changing dramatically today a story of i say different tequila [Music] the world had no idea that we have the biggest wave in the world here so yeah it's never been like this [Music] this one is a is a nine six and it's not the biggest one i have so it's already like double sized my name is antonio mariano and i'm a professional b-wave surfer what's up [Music] i'm from here i'm portuguese it's getting bigger i'm the youngest kid surfing nazareth tomorrow with the energy really strong it's going to be way more further out and some days ago i just won my first big wave contest in spain a couple of years ago tony went viral for one particular wave estimated to be 101 feet tall but he's still waiting for the guinness world book of records to make it official the adrenaline that we have surfing those veils is something that is impossible to explain like every big wave scares me a crash on the wave in ezra you feel that your foot is like almost behind your head your shoulder is on your knee and then you say like long time underwater it doesn't seem like it's too long but when you're getting kicked by 50 guys believe it's it's too long it's that extreme danger and the rush that comes with it that led to the discipline of big wave surfing 70 years ago big wave surfing began in hawaii where for a long time the sport had been limited to waves less than 10 feet but in the 1950s a group of daring surfers successfully rode the notorious 25-foot waves on oahu's north shore that inspired many surfers to scour the globe for bigger and bigger waves and they found them jaws mavericks tiaupu fiji australia mexico but they missed a spot a place with the perfect conditions that could generate waves larger than anyone had ever imagined [Music] storms are critical to big waves around the world when a storm moves over the ocean its winds hit the surface resulting in pulses of energy called swells which eventually become waves some of the most powerful storms form over the pacific and southern oceans which send swells to places like hawaii and australia the north atlantic has similar storms that send powerful swells barreling towards nazareth between october and april and there's one on the way now friday we are going to have one swell that is supposed to be the biggest hell of the season the swell is huge the wind is perfect the direction it's like a good direction the direction is really important because if it's the right direction we can have the effect of the canyon the canyon that sits beneath the surface just off the coast sets nazareth apart from every other big wave spot it begins here then runs for 230 kilometers right up to nazareth's beach it's half the length of the grand canyon but nearly three times as deep at its deepest point is name is george bruce reference of indian presidential campaign so how does this canyon lead to giant waves can you give me two minutes [Music] from that point here the canyon plunges in depth remarkably quickly over here the water is just 20 meters deep but right over here the canyon is 200 meters deep the length of a 60-story building this difference has a major effect on incoming swells a swell approaches nazareth it hits the canyon and gets split in two the part in this shallow water slows down but the part inside the canyon continues to move fast and turns inward towards the canyon wall when it hits that wall it's suddenly forced upwards resulting in a big wave but when that coincides with the slow swell the result is a humongous wave the current so why did it take so long for big wave surfers to find nazareth it's portugal portugal is a it's a small country and we don't have a big culture on big world surfing but for centuries nazareth did have a unique culture one that was also shaped by these waves not [Music] [Music] fishing sustained nazarenes for generations but it also required many to risk their lives tomorrow is but despite the dangers fishing continued to be nazareth's main industry until the mid 20th century when it began a slow decline largely because the fish populations were dwindling [Music] [Music] the drop in fish populations forced nazarenes to turn to a different source of income which came from here pride to nazareth [Music] in the summers nazareth's waters were calm and this beach attracted a lot of tourists [Music] [Music] but these tourists only came in the summer so nazareth needed a boost in the winter and they found it on the other side of town pride de norte because of the monstrous waves that launch out of the canyon here in the winter but that changed in the early 2000s when some locals who had been body surfing in these waters recognized the thrill in riding these waves and inspired them to look for someone who was willing to try and serve them with that man was garrett mcnamara they invited him to nazareth and after a year of training mcnamara caught the 78-foot wave that set the world record in 2011. i was seeing girls i was like wow [Music] over the next few years big wave surfers increasingly came to nazareth in 2017 brazilian surfer rodrigo kocha beat mcnamara's record by serving this 80-foot wave and in 2018 another brazilian maya gabiera set the women's world record here on this 68-foot wave then set it again in 2020. today five out of the six biggest waves ever surfed happened at nazareth and it's led to a rise in tourism year by year driven by people visiting in the winter to watch big wave surfing in less than a decade nazareth became the new capital of big wave surfing but all the success has come with complications this is joao delgado a former fisherman who's now a politician a procurement tomorrow here in lighthouse is going to be crazy when i'm in the water if someone does like a really good wave you can see the crowd just getting crazy and cheering honestly i feel i feel nervous when i feel ready and i'm confident like with the people i'm surfing with my boards with myself and with my body i just want to go out there and do the best performance possible [Music] [Music] yes [Music] well we hope to see the biggest wave ever for us [Applause] it's like a natural forest like fire that just has such a big power that it keeps you focused on it like it's hard to look away you get goosebumps it's something really special yeah [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] sometimes i feel a lot of pressure because i'm the young kid from nazareth you know and surfing big wives i'm portuguese i want to represent my country like the best way i can do it room they were like the real badass the real heroes because like in some giant days they would manage to pass the waves to the middle of the sea to fish to make money and to bring food home but right now big wealth surfing is becoming a tradition i'm part of that new tradition you know [Music] what is [Music] h [Music] you