Why Don’t People Seem To Care About The Biggest Wave Ever Surfed?

As a world recorder holder* myself, I sometimes struggle to relate to regular, non-exceptional folk.

To make small talk with the humdrum, everyday people who’ve never scaled the lofty heights of human endeavour and looked down upon the grey, uninspired dross of gen pop. (Imagine how devo’d I was when Depactus — Finally! A brand that speaks to my journey! — went tits up). I just find it easier, nay, more natural, to talk to fellow extraordinary humans, those that have excelled in their chosen field. 

I recently had a chance to chat to Sebastian Steudtner, rider of a Nazaré wave in October 2020, measured as 86ft (26.21m) in May 2022. More of that shortly.

My own fascination with world records began early. Our PE teacher, Mr Elliot, was old school in every sense, and wasn’t unknown to give certain kids a clip round the ear or a kick up the arse for the crime of being not very good at sport (never an issue with me, obvs). Before athletics sessions, as we sat cross-legged around the high jump crash mat, he used to tantalize us with thoughts of becoming immortal through Fosbury Flop. “Now, if one of you does manage to jump 2.41m or higher,” he’d calmly explain, “I’ll have to walk over to the office and get on the phone to the British Athletics Federation. Then, we’ll all have to wait for someone to come down from London on the train and verify it, and we will need witnesses. So you might be a bit late home for tea.” We giggled, no matter how many times we’d heard it before. We were only 11, but you just couldn’t help but wonder… 

At the time, a BBC1 program called Record Breakers further enthralled young Britons with world records, featuring Norris McWhirter (real name) as the resident statistician. Norris and twin brother Ross started an agency compiling stats and facts for newspapers after the Second World War, and were responsible for the very first Guinness Book of World Records in 1955. No slouch himself on track as a student (he dashed the 100m in 10.7s in the 1940’s) Norris joined the noble profession of sports journalism, even becoming a practioner of the high art of commentary. He was the stadium announcer for Roger Bannister’s sub 4-minute mile race in Oxford in 1954. Legend has it that as McWhirter announced, “The one mile winner, R. G. Bannister, in a record time of three minutes and —” a deafening roar from the crowd drowned out the “fifty nine point zero four seconds.”

One of Bannister’s pacemakers for the feat, Chris Chataway, worked for Guinness in London, and recommended the McWhirter twins to Sir Hugh Beaver, CEO, for the task of compiling a Guinness-sponsored book of superlatives. Sir Hugh had recently been on a shooting party in Ireland, had failed to hit his target, a golden plover, concluding that they therefore must be the fastest of all game birds. A friend disagreed, and despite considerable efforts, no satisfactory way of settling the matter was found. Deciding a reference book of notable facts and figures was required, Sir Hugh duly comissioned the McWhirters to compile it. Every pub in the land could then carry a copy, which would provide a simple, gentleman-like solution when any thirst-quenching patrons got into minor disagrements over trivia. Nobody needs to get headbutted, glassed or both over the precise length of the Suez Canal (633600ft), the age of the world’s oldest flamingo (83, Adelaide Zoo), or the language with the fewest irregular verbs (Turkish), ever again.

Intended merely as a marketing tool for the Guinness brand rather than a money spinner in book sales, initial uptake was modest; the UK’s biggest book distributor ordered just six copies of the first edition. But after inauspicious beginnings, the Book of Records began to surge in popularity. By the ’70s, the McWhirters were appearing on Record Breakers fielding live questions from the studio audience on literally any topic. Both having photographic memories, they were almost never unable to answer correctly. When not memorizing the longest distance milk had ever been squirted from a human eye socket (9’2”) the McWhirters identified on the right wing of the political spectrum, founding The Freedom Association think tank that opposed the trade union movement, nuclear disarmament and European integration. Ross also had outspoken views on Northern Ireland, put up a personal reward for the capture of those carrying out bombings in London, and was shot dead at home by the IRA. Norris continued to appear on Record Breakers alone, while book sales soared steadily into the millions, becoming the biggest selling copyright book in history, outsold only by the Bible, Qur’an and Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. 

One of its hundred million customers in 23 languages globally was Sebastian Steudtner’s aunt, in Austria. “My aunt had a copy of the book, an old one from the ’70s, years out of date. But I used to love looking up all the records as a kid,” Seb told me from Nazaré, where he was doing media duties following the announcement of his record last week, before a summer adjournment to Austria and Indo. When news came through of Seb’s Guinness World Record breaking wave last week, there’s a reasonable argument that it should have also been the record for the longest a sporting accomplishment has ever taken to be recognised by the Guinness World Records, from sporting feat (29/10/20) to ratification of record (27/05/22), 576 days. 

“Yeah, it did take a while to confirm it. I have no idea why,” he chuckles. “I won the Red Bull Big Wave Award last October, the first time anybody ever won it without a wave size being announced. And from then on, I kinda knew that they were trying to measure it.”

Of all world records, surfing wave heights tend to prove particularly troublesome, and as a result, more widely disputed by participants. NASA confirmed that the biggest waves they’d ever recorded were at Nazaré 27/10/20, presumably by satellite altimetry, but precisely how waves are measured by the WSL for big wave awards is kept realtively hush. Some people don’t mind that, finding the discussion itself particularly tedious. Seb isn’t wild about it as a topic, either. “I didn’t really want to know too much about how they do it. I do know they put out a report on Maya’s wave, her second world record, and then used that same process, taking a reference from within the image. They put some effort into it, somebody from the science team came here [Nazaré] to measure the various angles, but I don’t know the details.”

Unlike Bannister’s 1954 mile race, setting a new world record has never been an objective for Steudtner. “I’ve been around this sport a long time, and I’ve had my fair share of controversies in the past. It’s good to finally have it, but it’s never been a goal. I started surfing for fun, then started surfing Nazaré as a challenge, then it became a career. But I never have and would never surf to win a judgement from somebody. That is the most ridiculous thing to set as a goal. My goal is to have the motivation to be in ocean when it’s that big.” 

Maybe so, but that feels like a relatively unique position compared with some of the crew operating at big wave spots, where the lack of endemic, ‘go out and get some coverage’ type sponsors mean being in contention for big wave awards is key to sustaining a career. So are other crews at Nazaré specifically chasing the Guinness World Record? “Probably everyone, nowadays,” he summises. “There’s quite a bit of animosity and unhappiness overall in the sport. It’s not just for the Guinness, but everyone in the sport is struggling to understand what they need to do. Everyone feels like they deserve something, everyone’s trying to make a name for themselves. A world record helps with that, so it becomes a goal. If you get lucky, it can be a shortcut, relative to the amount of time put in. That’s what attracts a lot of people to Nazaré. It’s a bit like summitting Everest and getting a picture. When we started here, there was nobody around, and no outside interest at all, so it was about the experience. Now it’s definitely goal-orientanted.”

Which brings up the question of lineup priority. If fully-grown adults regularly dispute the right to wiggle along chest high waves at every surf spot around the world, every day of the year, it stands to reason that who gets dibs on potentially life-altering, career-defining waves at Nazaré would be a bone of some contention. “It’s pretty random, and there’s definitely no ethics,” explains Seb. “People who like each other on land don’t like each other at that moment. Personally, I’m just going for the waves I want to have, and I’m very confident in choosing them.” 

The previous record holder is jovial, compact Brazilian Rodrigo Koxa, known as Koxa Bomb for his 80ft ride in 2017. Koxa’s wave transformed his entire career, and allowed him to build a personal brand around his Guinness World Record. He came up with a logo, a cartoon bomb with a fuse, even his own hand sign, a fist clench salute to represent the bomb. And while Koxa has Bomb stickers adorning his boards, Steudtner has Porsche, which probably goes a little further towards rent and gas money. Still, there’s plenty of room for a personal sticker alongside. “You know I used to have the ‘S’? Well that’s the most dramatic, sad logo journey ever. It actually comes from a Viking rune, meaning ‘create your own reality,’ something really positive. So first, everyone said it looked like the Hitler SS. That was the first thing I got shit for. Now, Russia used exactly that logo, but reversed as a ‘Z’, for their invasion logo. So I might have to call up Koxa Bomb, and ask if I can borrow his.” 

The free-for-all of personal branding opportunities, lack of a tour to decide a World Champion since 2018, and other recent downshifts in professional big wave surfing have seen the monetary returns on a career spent surfing life threatening waves broadly diminished — even if both qualitative performances and wave heights continue to be upped. As a result, it mightn’t be unreasonable to assume that the cultural heft of a Guinness World Record, perhaps once more seen by some as a Wikipedia page quirk along the longest wave ever surfed by a dog (Abbie Girl, 107.2m), is gaining legitimacy partly by filling an accolade void. “If we look back, the first time I won an XXL in 2010, there were three thousand people in Anaheim Stadium. It was a proper big thing. Now, I wouldn’t even know where to go to watch, or submit, and yet it’s the thing surfers are putting their lives on the line to win. That’s the source of some of the controversy, the disputes, the reason there’s all these conflicting claims. It’s because surfers feel they need to be proactive in their self promotion. Guinness is not a replacement for that, and it happens way less often, to fewer people, but it is something the public can relate to. The reality is people don’t come to watch big Nazaré like, ‘I’m Team Sebastian, or ‘I’m team… whoever.’ People come here to watch the whole circus. And we’re just the clowns who happen to be doing it.”

*Oh, me? Most days live WSL commentary in a calendar month (28 days, Sept 2019). As yet unratified, with no response from the McWhirter estate, Guinness or the League. But I watch with interest to see if any can ever top it (even more impressive when considering September is short changed with a mere 30 days).