Lucas Chianca Wins Nazaré Big Wave Challenge in 30-to-40 Foot Surf (Video Recap)

It wasn’t the biggest Nazaré ever, but it was contestable.

And “contestable” for the world’s best tow surfers at the world’s biggest wave is still nothing to be trifled with. So, the 2024 TUDOR Nazaré Big Wave Challenge went down in Portugal on Monday, January 22nd with a building swell topping 30-40 foot.

Lucas “Chumbo” Chianca won the Men’s Best Performance, Maya Gabeira won the Women’s Best Performance – both defending champions of this very event – and Chumbo and Pedro Scooby won the overall Team’s Best Performance award.

As noted in a press release from the WSL, the day started off slow with the high tide and building swell:

“The TUDOR Nazaré Big Wave Challenge unfolded today in epic, 30-to-40 foot waves at the world-famous Praia do Norte in Nazaré, Portugal. Surfers woke up to a glorious day of high-performance, tow surfing with light winds and very clean wedges across the various peaks of the Nazaré lineup.

“While the bigger sets were a little slow in the morning, forcing competition to go on hold for a couple of hours, the action got underway just after noon as massive crowds assembled on the headland and around the iconic lighthouse.

“A little under five hours later, competition wrapped in fantastic fashion in massive waves and with enthusiastic crowds cheering on the world’s best big wave surfers at the awards ceremony on the headland.”

Chumbo – a five-time winner in Nazaré; four from towing, one from paddling – was forced to make a last-minute team change, since his typical tow partner, Kai Lenny, is still on the mend following a helmet-cracking concussion at Pipeline.

“This is a dream for me, I never expected to win so many times here,” he said. “This place is magical, Nazaré has given me everything in my life. This win is probably the most special to me because we were a 100% Brazilian team. It was such a pleasure to tow with Scooby, one of the guys who pushed me, helped me and inspired me when I started surfing big waves. I’m really happy to give him back a little bit with our performance today.”

As for Gabeira, her back-to-back win at Nazaré innovative surfing; read: she was actually trying to surf the wave, rather than merely survive it.

“Today was a very difficult day to surf and especially to perform rail surfing,” she said. “And to do that under a time pressure is tough, normally in the free surf when you’re tired you rest, here you have to go and you tend to take more risk than you probably should. It’s very difficult but so very rewarding in the end.”

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