Australian Laura Enever sets world record after catching Hawaiian giant wave
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Australian Laura Enever broke the world record for the biggest wave ever paddled into by a woman.
PHOTO: LAURAENEVER/INSTAGRAM
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SYDNEY – Australian Laura Enever has surfed her way into the record books after stroking into a giant four-storey wave in Hawaii earlier in 2023, the World Surf League and Guinness World Records said on Wednesday.
The 31-year-old was surfing at an outer reef on Oahu’s North Shore in January when she caught a huge blue wall measured at 43.6 feet (13.3m), breaking the world mark for the biggest wave ever paddled into by a woman.
The previous record of 12.8m, set by Andrea Moller, had stood for eight years.
“When I took off and I looked down the face and was like ‘Holy cow, this is the biggest wave you’ve ever been on, just make it to the bottom, do not fall here at the top’,” Enever said.
“I was so stoked, there is just no feeling like it.”
She did make it to the bottom but was quickly steamrolled by the wave and some even larger ones behind it.
“I came up from that wave, and there was a huge, huge wave behind that took out the whole line-up, and I just saw boards flying everywhere,” she added.
“That wave, I had to really go back to my training.
“There (were) actually three of them that came, so yeah, just had to stay super calm... When I got to the inside, I was almost laughing – I just couldn’t believe I’d caught that wave but also escaped that crazy, huge wave behind mine.”
Most photographers and videographers were covering a big wave competition at nearby Waimea Bay and it was not until days later when a photographer messaged her with a picture of her ride that she realised it might be a world record.
“It was amazing because I’d come to terms with it just being a moment I’d had and even if there wasn’t any photos or records of it, then I was happy with that,” she said.
“When I showed my family – I’d already told them about the wave – but when I showed them, they were half mad and half proud. They were like, ‘Oh my goodness, you didn’t tell us it was that big’.”
Hawaii’s Aaron Gold holds surfing’s men’s paddle record with a 19.2m wave he caught off Maui in 2016, while Brazil’s Maya Gabeira was towed by a jet ski into a wave measuring 22.4m at Nazare in Portugal in 2020.
The biggest wave ever ridden was a 26.2m monster at Nazare in 2020, by Germany’s Sebastian Steudtner, who was also towed into it. REUTERS, AFP
