Big-Wave Surfer Lucas "Chumbo" Chianca Gets Insanely Barreled in Southern California During Hurricane Hilary (Video)

Dashel Pierson
·2 min read
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Sometimes, seeing a big-wave surfer in, well, small waves is sorta like seeing your high school geometry teacher in Vons, checking the expiration date on a gallon of milk.

It’s a little bit…jarring.

But, in this day and age, when a lot of pro surfers aren’t typecasting themselves to one specific field of waveriding, they surf everything. All types of waves, all types of boards. For example, Brazilian big-wave madman, Lucas “Chumbo” Chianca, who was recently in southern California during Hurricane Hilary, where he scored a couple head-high tubes, even stepping off straight onto the sand from one lengthy drainer.

The clip above comes from surf filmmaker, Tucker Wooding, and shows Chumbo in Newport Beach, CA, in the pouring rain amidst the once-in-a-century hurricane, and enjoying the small window of waves and light offshore wind which hit the region, and…

Shorebreak barrels. Walk-offs onto the sand. A far cry from gigantic Nazaré for Chumbo.

In an Instagram post of the hurricane session, Wooding wrote:

“Hurricane Hilary with @lucaschumbo Some fun waves in Newport today! We pulled up and checked this one zone and watched for a while, then ran back to the car to get ready. Chumbo paddled out and 15 seconds later got this drainer! Great timing.”

As previously reported, it looked like quite a bit of trash and runoff (and rats!) came along with the rains of Hurricane Hilary. And all that poured into the ocean.

That’s a recipe for a staph infection. Or hepatitis. Or something even more sinister.

But if the waves are pumping…some folks decide to take their chances.

Chumbo certainly did.

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