Garrett McNamara claims record for biggest wave surfed, doubts raised
- From: News Corp Australia Network
- January 30, 2013
WAS IT or wasn't it? Doubts have been raised about a claim by Hawaiian surfer Garrett McNamara that he broke his own record for the biggest wave ridden in surfing history.
McNamara says he caught a 100-foot (30.48m) wave off the coast of Nazare in Portugal on Monday.
If the claims are verified, it will mean McNamara, who was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts but whose family moved to Hawaii's North Shore when he was 11, has beaten the 78-foot (23.77m) monster also set at Nazare in November 2011.
But, according to one oceanographer, the wave was likely smaller than 30.48m.
Pat Caldwell, a friend of McNamara's and an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says he's seen a second angle of the wave that shows "the breaker is clearly well under 100 feet."
"The wave behind him is bigger," he wrote in an email to US News.
Caldwell estimates the wave was smaller than the 23.77m wave McNamara surfed in Nazare last year.
Nazare is widely considered one of the best big-wave spots in the world because of its rare coastal geography.
Even without a storm, waves of 12m or more are relatively common, explained Joao Vitorino, an oceanographer with Portugal's Insituto Hidrografico.
"It's a complex region with a submarine canyon-when waves propagate over the canyon at different speeds, they start to converge near the shore," he told US News.
"This increases the height of waves in the area."