Water Angle: Lucas Chianca Dives Under Nazaré Avalanche

We’ve written a lot about Nazaré for the 2024 SURFER Big Wave Challenge . There are 18 entries from the biggest wave in Portugal, ranging from botched takeoffs on paddle waves to strapped-in tow surfers soaring across the biggest wave of their life.

Winter storms produce a lot of Nazaré content each year, and it's not uncommon to get a little desensitized to the footage. Then clips like the one embedded above surface and make one recalibrate the waves’s entire risk-reward-scenario.

This particular video, shot from the water in slow motion by Luis Pereira, shows Lucas Chianca flying down a comically large teepee on February 24, 2024. It looks entirely different (and a lot more terrifying) than the land angle we published a few months back. From eye level, you get a better sense of how big, powerful and just plain mean the wave is. What is lacks in a Jaws or Mavericks-style barrel it makes up for with sheer mass.

Chumbo looks like an ant descending a mountain at the wave crests. Buffeted by offshore wind, he somehow makes it down the bottom before the wave goes wide and swallows him, presumably working him up for the umpteenth time.

The 29-year-old Brazilian has arguably the best Nazaré resume out there. He’s a four-time winner of the Nazaré Tow Challenge and won the paddle event in 2018. He’s tenacious, to put it mildly. Will this wave give him more hardware to his trophy case? Find out at the SURFER Big Wave Challenge award show in October.