Santa Cruz surfer seeks world record for epic Mavericks wave ride

At an awards ceremony Saturday night -year-old Santa Cruz surfer Alessandro Alo Slebir will eventually find out if he set a new world record while riding the towering wave at Mavericks last winter and whether he captured the Holy Grail of surfdom a -foot wave The record to break is an -foot wave ridden by a German surfer at Nazare Portugal in Early unofficial estimates put Slebir s at feet Making big wave history would be awesome Slebir announced If not I got to ride the tallest wave of my life and I ll never forget it Santa Cruz big-wave surfer Alessandro Alo Slebir stands near the Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse which sits above Santa Cruz's heralded surf break Steamer Lane Photo by Jim Seimas Santa Cruz Sentinel That swell at Mavericks a half mile off the coast of Half Moon Bay hit two days before Christmas on the same day and amid the same storm that destroyed the Santa Cruz Wharf The waves were so big they created their own wind and blew out the settling fog Slebir s descent was so dangerous so hallowed to the surfing region that videos of it have been set to requiems for the souls of the dead I just definitely remember the feeling of the wave sucking up behind me and that alone just gave me the sense that I knew it was going to be the biggest wave that I ve ever ridden he revealed I never felt that on a surfboard A photogrammetry analysis that is more Pythagorean Theorem and less artificial intelligence will determine whether the wave will make the history books as the largest ever ridden The viral international attention Slebir s ride received and the prospective for it to make the Guinness World Records is re-animating the surfing world casting a fresh glow on the local surfing spot and renewing a sense of nostalgia for the local surfboard shaper who discovered these colossal waves years ago It s a validation that this is the real deal explained Jeff Clark who pioneered the enormous surf break in and is the first person known to ride it He was back then when only Hawaii was known for big waves Mavericks legend Jeff Clark participates in the opening ceremony of the World Surf League Big Wave Tour Mavericks Challenge at Mavericks Beach in Half Moon Bay in LiPo Ching Bay Area News Group Over the past decade the surfing spotlight has shifted from Mavericks to Nazare pronounced NAH-zah-ray a fishing village miles north of Lisbon There -foot waves routinely crash close to shore and the surfing events that followed have turned the society into a global tourist and surfing mecca Surfers have set five world wave records there Sebastian Steudtner who holds the largest wave record has been sponsored by Mercedes-Benz Then came Slebir s wave Bulk surfers along the California coast consider - to -foot waves too huge and scary to attempt The sets rolling in at Mavericks that day were five times that size As a kid Slebir was weaned on surf videos At he and his dad paddled miles from Santa Cruz to Monterey in a day He is sponsored by spirits and supplement companies who help pay his journey expenses but still works in construction during the off-season He was chasing giant waves in Hawaii when the forecast called for a supersize swell to reach Mavericks and produce the kind of colossal waves he had never witnessed He flew home thinking he would have maybe regretted it for the rest of my life if he missed what became one of the biggest swells ever recorded at his home break He headed into the surf that morning years to the day that legendary Hawaiian surfer Mark Foo was killed there in in a two-wave hold down that can plunge surfers feet deep and pummel them underwater so long that a second set of waves will pass overhead On the bulk days Mavericks surfers paddle themselves out into the urgent waves But on that morning with monumental waves crashing and southern winds stirring up the water nearly all paired up with partners on motorized watercraft who towed them to the top of the waves Veteran photographers videographers and rescue crews joined them Frank Quirarte piloting his new Yamaha WaveRunner narrated a play-by-play for his Instagram live feed Something s going on he explained The ocean is bubbling up It s coming now for sure Quirarte had switched to a still camera when Slebir towed on a Jet Ski by his longtime surfing buddy Luca Padua of Half Moon Bay hurled to the crest of the gigantic wave and let go of his tether The wave looked like it could peel for miles Adrenaline kicked in as he dropped down the wall of water With the sheer force and lift of the wave Slebir was speeding down the glacial face at up to mph but it was rising so fast it seemed like he wasn t moving For a moment he felt like he was surfing backwards Big-wave surfers photographers and safety personnel watch from the channel as Santa Cruz's Alessandro Alo Slebir rides a wave at Mavericks located off the coast of Half Moon Bay that was estimated to be feet on Dec Audrey Lambidakis Special to the Sentinel You re riding this wave he revealed and your body is going into almost a survival stage He barely remembers the final turn off the trough and he didn t hear the cheers that arose Clark who knelt beside Foo years ago when the surfer was pulled lifeless from the sea watched Slebir s epic ride that day from the back of a Sea-Doo set up to pull flailing surfers aboard That wave that Alo got was a freak of nature a unicorn he mentioned The legend of Slebir s wave grew through the holiday week The New York Post wrote about it ESPN did a segment on it And over the past nine months a crew of judges has been measuring it pinpointing the exact location of the wave s base then stacking images of Slebir s crouched pose on top of each other like a totem pole up the face of the wave Bill Sharp of Big Wave Challenge the sport s new governing body was on the judging panel that analyzed photos of Slebir s ride from six angles If a new record is set it will be accepted by Guinness World Records the London-based company stated The long-awaited reveal will happen at the end of a Saturday night banquet Slebir is up for this year s Men s Biggest Wave award against two surfers who rode immense waves in Hawaii the day before Whether he breaks the record or not Slebir commented the hype of his ride shows off Mavericks as one of the scariest waves in the world and it deserves that respect Sharp who is keeping mum on the results until Saturday night declared Slebir s ride was extraordinary However big it was feet there s this gaping mouth of death behind him Sharp explained No matter what happens he rode it perfectly and it kicked him out grinning ear to ear