Maya Gabeira (Image: Instagram/@maya)
Brazilian surfer Maya Gabeira smashed her own record for the largest wave surfed by a woman, making it once again to the Guinness World Records.
Guinness World Records announced her feat last Thursday, Sept. 10. The surfer rode a wave that measured 73.5 feet or 22.4 meters, as seen in a video from Pedro Miranda that was posted by the World Surf League (WSL).
NEW RECORD: Largest wave surfed – unlimited (female) – 73.5 foot (22.4 metres). Congratulations to Brazil's Maya Gabeira 🌊🏄🏻♀️
🎥 @wsl / Pedro Miranda pic.twitter.com/I71oqKYadS
— Guinness World Records (@GWR) September 10, 2020
Below is another look as Gabeira breezes through the towering wave.
Gabeira made her achievement on Feb. 11 during the inaugural event at the WSL Nazare Tow Surfing Challenge in Praia do Norte, Portugal.
She made her previous record in the same waters in 2018, when she surfed a monstrous 20.72-meter (68-foot) wave. Brazilian Rodrigo Koxa also made the men’s record in the same site by surfing a wave measuring 24.38 meters (80 feet).
Measuring the size of a wave takes teams of researchers, scientific methods and image analysis, according to the WSL on Sept. 10. The League said that its researchers collaborated with teams from the the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego in La Jolla and the University of Southern California Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering in Los Angeles to determine wave heights.
It was through this process that Gabeira was declared to have made a new world record and the winner of the cbdMD XXL Biggest Wave Award.
She described the wave as “special” and “terrifying” in an interview with WSL’s World Surf Weekly.
“I really didn’t expect to go any bigger,” she said. “I just kept riding and enjoying my time in Nazare.” Niña V. Guno /ra
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