🏄‍♀️ Not all surfers are created equal—some want to surf a tsunami 🌊

👋 Happy “no tsunami”! There was a moment when I thought: we won’t be having a newsletter this week. Seeing Waikiki deserted on the surf cams, hearing about friends evacuating to higher ground in Hawai’i, and late-night choppers along the beach in LA made for a stressful Wednesday night. I’m so happy I can say: it’s all good.

🏄‍♀️ Let’s surf:

• Not all surfers are created equal 🧘‍♀️

• The legend of Nazaré—but is it even a wave? 🌊

• Dealing with a bottom turn 🍑

• Good surf news—only 🐶🏄‍♂️

• Free the codes! 🔓

^SURFODRAMA

 😱 Not all surfers are created equal—some want to surf tsunamis

The original headline for this piece was: Not all surfers are created equal—some are OK with being kooksplained to. But then I saw a dude (on the cams) getting ready to surf a tsunami in Waikiki, and I was like—yeah, we are not the same.

💬 The post that lit a fire
One day, one of Girls Who Can’t Surf Good shared that she was ever so tired of the non-stop commentary from surf “bros” and constant advice-offering:

“You should go surf more.”
“You should use a bigger board.”
“You should pop up faster.”
“You should think less.”
“You should spread your feet more.”
“You should surf good.”

The community largely shared the same frustration: unsolicited, often condescending advice aimed at beginners. Kooksplaining, as we call it.

But there were also comments from surfers who said they did improve thanks to unsolicited advice from more experienced surfers at their local breaks. For them, it was like boot camp.

And that’s when it hit me: not all surfers are created equal.

🌺 Surfing means different things
Maybe that’s the real problem—we keep pretending surfing has one shared definition. But it doesn’t.

Every surfer has their own idea of what surfing should be about. The surf bros want every break to feel like a pro circuit stop. The beginners don’t yet know how serious this surfing business is going to get for them.

Some surfers want to rip. Some just want to commune with the ocean and be left alone. Some want to surf once a year on a tropical vacay—and that’s OK too. Some are dying to be helpful, even when no one asked. I’m OK with my boobs popping out of my summer suit. Some girl surfers find that disrespectful.

Personally, I just want everyone smiling in the lineup—because on most days, it’s a pretty grim picture. So focused. So stressed out. But that’s my idea of surfing. I shouldn’t get to impose it on anyone else.

Not everyone wants the same thing out of surfing. The key is learning to deal with that reality—and staying zen any time someone in the lineup opens their mouth.

P.S. I’m not a fan of kooksplaining. Usually, I have an allergic reaction to it.
But but but. Yesterday morning, I was surfing when a guy (a coach, I’m guessing—he was pushing a student into waves) told me to move closer to the nose on my board. I did. It worked. I’ll take it.

^{SURF SPOT SPOTLIGHT}

The legend of Nazaré—but is this even a wave?

Here I am, leafing through the Encyclopedia of Surfing, thinking: Wow, Matt Warshaw must hate Nazaré. No mention. Like, none at all. But then of course I realize that I am a total idiot, because when Matt wrote the hardback version in 2003, there was no Nazaré per se.

There was a town of Nazaré in Portugal. There have been local surfers at Nazaré since 1968, maybe even earlier, riding smaller waves up to 10 feet. But the Nazaré as we know it today—that didn’t happen until November 2011.

I’m sure it would’ve happened sooner if Garrett McNamara, instead of corresponding via email with the Nazaré local who showed him the monster wave for five years, would’ve just got off his arse and got on a plane. Thank God for women—and Garrett’s wife. (Watch 100 Foot Wave for this story to make further sense.)

🏔️ Why Nazaré is different
Nazaré is a bigger freak of nature than Mavericks. When winter swells arrive, they funnel through an underwater canyon—basically a giant underwater trench that stretches right to the shore—that is 2.5 times deeper than the Grand Canyon, producing waves that can exceed 80–100 feet.

That’s about a 3-mile-deep trench delivering a five-story building of water, you guys. Without a jet ski and tow-in, it would be unrideable. Delightful.

It also delivers the whitewater, splashing in every direction onto the rocks like I’ve never seen before. Not to mention, it’s not warm, just because you’re thinking, oh, it’s Portugal. 60°F/15°C on average. And people do almost die there. Big-wave surfer Maya Gabeira nearly drowned after breaking her ankle in a wipeout and then losing consciousness. What a fun wave!

🌬️ The first big ride
Okay, back to Garrett McNamara at Nazaré. It’s the morning of November 1, 2011. A massive North Atlantic swell is peaking. Light offshore winds are holding the wave face clean.

Garrett is being towed in behind Andrew Cotton (the British big-wave surfer who was part of his team). He catches the monster, drops in on a steep, lurching face, disappearing into a cloud of spray as he outran the avalanche of whitewater behind him.

The rest is history. The wave he caught was estimated at 78 feet (23.8 meters)—the biggest wave ever surfed.

🏆 Records keep on falling
Not for long, though. Rodrigo Koxa rode an 80-foot wave, according to the Guinness World Record book, in 2017. Then in 2020, Sebastian Steudtner came down an estimated 86-foot wave.

And yes—there are women charging these giants too, including Maya Gabeira, who holds the women’s world record for the biggest wave ever surfed (73.5 feet).

Surfers are a tad obsessed with riding Nazaré and measuring their wave height records. Last year, Sebastian once again braved Nazaré and rode a 93.73-foot wave measured using state-of-the-art drone technology developed by Porsche Engineering and Team Steudtner—or so says the press release.

And just before Christmas 2024, Alessandro “Alo” Slebir rode a 108-foot wave. These records are yet to be recognized.

I get the feeling that Nazaré is not universally loved in the surfing world. Perhaps because it’s a novelty wave, according to Greg Long, a big-wave rider: It stands up for half a second and then it’s over, he said.

A regular wave has a rest and a trough. And Nazaré sometimes just doesn’t have the trough at all. Ergo, Nazaré is not a wave at all?

^{WORD OF THE WEEK}

🍑 Bottom (turn)

Word of the week is Bottom. I’m so juvenile—I hear ‘bottom’ and think ‘fanny.’ Only people fluent in both British and American English will get that joke. Alas, it’s the only one I’ve got for you today.

Oh, sorry—it’s a Bottom turn we’re talking about here.

🏄‍♂️ What Is a bottom turn?
A bottom turn is one of the most fundamental (and important!) maneuvers in surfing, and yet most beginners either skip it completely or don’t even know they’re doing it. So, let’s fix that.

A bottom turn is what you do right after you drop into a wave. It’s the first proper turn you make at the base of the wave to set up your ride.

You angle your board off the bottom of the wave to either go back up to the face (if you’re turning up to do a maneuver) or continue trimming down the line on a green wave.

It’s basically your way of saying: “Okay wave, I caught you. Now here’s where I’m headed.” You’re using the wave’s energy to direct your line.

💡 Why does it matter?
Because a good bottom turn (OMG 😆, just ignore me) sets the tone for the rest of your ride. It controls your speed, your direction, whether you can actually stay in the pocket (remember that word of the week?), and whether you can go for that first trim, cutback (oh my), or even noseride down the line.

No bottom turn means going straight to the beach. And that’s okay for a while, but it gets tired pretty quickly.

You’re probably doing it already, just don’t know it. If you’ve ever angled your board a little bit to the left or right as you stood up—that’s a decent start of a bottom turn!

📝 How to get better

First, angle your takeoff
Don’t drop straight down. Paddle at a slight diagonal so you already have some direction. Watch how the wave is breaking—you want to be paddling away from the breaking whitewater.

Look where you want to go
Your eyes and shoulders lead the turn. Head down to the bottom, then start to lean and look up the face of the wave.

Bend your knees
Make sure that you bend your knees and drop your butt (or bottom!) down so your center of gravity is lower.

Shift your weight
Try shifting your weight gently over your toes or heels to engage the edge of the board.

Turn, turn, turn!

📚 A little history
The bottom turn has been around as long as surfers have been turning on waves—but it became a distinct move in the 1960s and ’70s when shortboards and performance surfing took off.

Before that, surfers on big heavy longboards mainly rode straight or trimmed. But with shorter boards came tighter turns and more vertical surfing—the bottom turn became the launchpad for everything else: cutbacks, snaps, off-the-lips, you name it.

So many new words for our word of the week!

^{THE WIPEOUT WEEKLY SURF NEWS ROUNDUP}

Good surf news—only 🫠

• Turning surf trash into treasure on Maui

• 66 surfers, 1 giant board break Guinness World Record

• Surf's pup in SoCal this September

• Surfing Santas hit Jersey (yes, in July)

👉 Read the full news roundup

^{WEE PROMO CORNER}

🛍️ How we buy surf stuff matters

The surf industry can be a meat grinder.

At The Wipeout Weekly, we think we can change that. We believe it’s possible to build a better surf economy—one that supports surfers who make awesome surf stuff and the surfers who buy it.

✅ We support small, local, and women-led businesses
🌊 We stand by products that are safe for the ocean and the life within it
🤝 We applaud services that lift up local surf communities

Our mission (well, one of them): to make it easier for surfers to buy from surfers like themselves.

Know someone cool? Are someone cool? Ping us—we’ll feature you. For free.

Free the codes!

🧴 Coconut Smuggler — pre- and post-surf haircare by Brittany.
Use code GWCSG20 for 20% off.

🧘 Yoga for Surfers — improve your pop-up & more by Inessa.
Use code GIRLS.

⬆️ Aaaaaaand that was the last wave of the week!
If a friend forwarded this and you liked it, hit subscribe & join us! We will see you all next week! 🌊

^HOUSEKEEPING

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