A surfer from Devon, England, may have just made history by tackling what could be the largest wave ever surfed by a woman.
Laura Crane, 30, took on the challenge at the Nazaré Big Wave Challenge in Portugal this past Saturday, confronting a massive wave that could set a new world record.
The team at Guinness World Records is currently reviewing Crane’s remarkable achievement to determine if she has indeed broken the existing record.
The current record is held by Brazil’s Maya Gabeira, who surfed a 73.5-foot (22.4-meter) wave at Nazaré in February 2020. However, Crane believes her wave exceeded that height.
In an interview with The Times, Crane recounted how her jet ski operator cautioned her that the wave would be a “bomb” as he released her onto it at approximately 30 mph.
Crane described the exhilarating experience as akin to “flying.”
‘It’s just insane, it’s a total out of body experience which I don’t have words for,’ she told The Times, as she prepares to take on another towering swell this week.
‘You are moving so quickly and you don’t have much control of what is going to happen and it’s just having to trust yourself, your training, your body and mind and trust the ocean that everything is going to work out OK.
The Guinness World Records are currently assessing her latest efforts to see if she’s beaten the current record of 73½ft (22.4m)
‘As I looked back over my shoulder and saw this thing, your first feeling is fear, which is the body’s response to danger, and the next step is having to really control that and make sure you are as present in that moment and trust that you can do it.’
The small fishing village Nazaré, north of Lisbon, turns into a surfers’ paradise in winter when a three-mile-deep underwater canyon can generate waves up to a ten-storey high building.
Previously, Marcio Freire, a veteran of the sport, died after vanishing when attempting one of the mammoth waves in 2023.
Several people have also been seriously injured.
Ms Crane is the first British woman to take on the giant waves last year.
Earlier this year, she broke her ankle while surfing a jumbo Nazaré wave while training and has continued to hustle to make a comeback for the competition this winter.
She said her angle is similar to Gabeira’s, so it should not be too hard to compare.
The verification process can take many months, even years, as experts try to calculate the size of the wave.
Laura Crane, 30, was competing at the Nazaré Big Wave Challenge in Portugal on Saturday when she took on the monstrous wall of water
When Laura Crane competed on Love Island in 2018 during her break from surfing
After coming off her wave in one piece, she burst out into tears when she was picked up by her support team on a jet ski.
‘It was just incredible tears of happiness and joy, and that I got to have this incredible experience with this wave that I have seen in my dreams a million times over,’ she said.
‘It’s always a lot of relief. Once you look over your shoulder at the most critical part, when it’s breaking over your head, you are just trying not to freak out about what is towering behind you. And there is a big moment of relief when your driver is there to pick you up.
‘As soon as I came out of the water the photographer said, ‘I don’t think you understand how big that wave was.’
At the time, while she was competing, the event was put on hold due to a technical fault.
Despite confusion over whether or not people could carry on surfing, she and fellow Brit Andrew Cotton went out and carried on with the competition.
‘Most surfers packed up, but I couldn’t,’ she said. ‘I had just hours of light left and the swell was dying. It was a race against time.’
After moving to Devon at the age of eight, Ms Devon fell in love with surfing, but not everything has been smooth sailing to get to this point.
Surfer Laura Crane during the one year to ho until Tokyo 2020 event
She has had to overcome sexism, an eating disorder and sepsis while also gaining confidence back on the waves.
By 12-years-old she picked up several surfing titles and travelling around the world with some of the biggest sponsors in surfing.
But as time went on, she said the surfing world would treat women more like models than athletes.
One example of this was when she was 15, she was encouraged to post pictures in a bikini or next to a surfboard but never actually surfing. She also developed an eating disorder by the age of 16 which she says was not uncommon for women surfers.
After taking a break from all the different pressures, she appeared on Love Island but was not prepared for the backlash that came along with it , including looking different to the other girls.
When she moved to London in 2018, she was admitted to hospital with sepsis. Ms Crane thought this was her body’s way of rejecting a fast paced lifestyle and was so near the beach again.
Training for Nazaré involved months of both physical and mental preparations, including training her to stay calm when she felt stressed.
‘I believe I have been training for this my whole life,’ she said. ‘Big wave surfing is really interesting and your life experiences play a part in your mental strength.
‘I wouldn’t want to live through some of the things I have lived through again, but it’s given me a thick skin and belief to keep fighting and keep that path open for someone else after me as well. It’s a lifetime in the making and I will still keep going.’
She said the thought of breaking the world record was ‘very exciting for British surfing.’
