A Brazilian surfer has died on the Portuguese Atlantic coast near the town of Nazaré. The 47-year-old died after falling while surfing at Praia do Norte beach area, Portugal’s National Maritime Authority said. The crashed surfer wanted to ride a wave with the controversial tow-in surfing technique.
The sea area off the coast of Nazaré is considered one of the most challenging places for surfers in the world because of its giant waves. Tow-in surfing allows surfers to access particularly high, otherwise unreachable waves by being towed into a breaking wave using a jet ski or helicopter.
According to media reports, the dead man is experienced surfer Marcio Freire, who lived in Hawaii for 20 years. He had appeared in the documentary “Mad Dogs,” which showed how he and two friends moved to Hawaii to surf the big waves there.
Accordingly, the sea conditions on Thursday were not particularly dangerous. According to the Portuguese Maritime Authority, rescue workers found the crashed surfer in cardiac and respiratory arrest and immediately began resuscitation measures on the beach. However, these were in vain.
The five kilometer deep and 170 km long “Nazaré Canyon”, in which the huge waves arise, is located directly in front of the Portuguese Atlantic coast. US professional surfer Garrett McNamara introduced the waves of Nazaré to a larger audience in the early 2010s.
Since then, the international surfing elite has traveled to Nazaré year after year, especially in winter. Several accidents had already occurred at the site, but as of Thursday none had been fatal.
In October, the German surfer Sebastian Steudtner set a world record for the highest wave ever surfed in Nazaré, around 100 kilometers north of Lisbon. The giant wave he took was 26.21 meters tall.
