Guinness World Records Laura Enever: Australian surfer opens up about her 13.3m wave in Hawaii
It’s the wave Laura Enever waited 30 years to ride. A 13.3-metre mountain of water that catapulted her into the record books and earned the Aussie surfer a slice of $750,000. WATCH THE VIDEO.
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It’s the wave Laura Enever waited 30 years to ride.
For two hours she played cat and mouse with the outrageous swells at Oahu’s Outer Reef, the notorious big-wave break on the Hawaiian island’s North Shore, until a little voice in her head whispered: “This is it. Time to go.”
Seconds later she was swallowed up by a wall of crashing water. Her world blinked to black and she was sent spinning into the dark depths.
The whole time she smiled. Stoked.
Enever didn’t know it but she had just surfed her way into the Guinness World Record books.
A former ISA Junior World Champion, Triple Crown Rookie and World Junior Champion, the superstar surfer from North Narrabeen spent seven years on the World Surf League Championship Tour before giving it all up to chase big-wave thrills.
That adrenaline addiction led her to a beach in Hawaii in January, where she watched and waited for a call-up that, thankfully, never came.
The world’s best big-wave surfers had descended on Waimea Bay for the first Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational in seven years.
Enever, 31, watched from the periphery. A second alternate for the event, her instructions were simple — wait your turn.
However, as the best surf in seven years stared her in the face, she made the call that would change her life forever.
“I just decided I didn’t want to be waiting for someone to get hurt,’’ Enever said.
“This was the best swell that had come to Hawaii in years and I wanted to get out there and get amongst it.”
So Enever and fellow Aussie big-wave enthusiast Felicity Palmateer set off down the beach in search of a set in which to sink their teeth.
“That day was so scary,” Enever said. “It was so much bigger than anyone anticipated.”
“When you are out in the line-up and turn to go on one of those waves, it all comes down to you.
“It’s an individual sport the moment you turn for that wave.
“But when we got out there it was so much bigger than we thought it was going to be.
“Felicity and I turned to each other and said ‘let’s keep each other safe’.
“We didn’t have to catch a wave that day. We were fine with that.
“It took me two hours of cat and mousing around the line-up, escaping these massive waves to put myself in a position to have that wave come to me.”
A 13.3m mountain of water rose high above her head and Enever had just a few moments to make her decision: fight or flight.
“When it came to me I was in the perfect spot,’’ she said. “It felt like a gift. So I just told myself ‘this is it, time to go’.
“When I took off I looked down the face and realised it was the biggest wave I had ever been on. That’s when I told myself I had to make it to the bottom. Focus. Hold on and ride this wave.
“Once you go you can’t pull back. It felt like an eternity dropping down that wave.
“I looked up and saw the height of the wave coming down on me. It exploded on me.
“I was underwater getting thrashed around but I had a smile on my face. I couldn’t believe what I had just done.”
With the world’s best big-wave surfers only a stone’s throw away, Enever had just made history.
It was the largest wave surfed paddle-in by a female – 43.6 feet, or 13.3 metres – breaking the previous record set by Andrea Moller seven years earlier.
Not that Enever had any clue at the time. In fact, it took four days for her to find any evidence of the wave at all.
“I remember telling Felicity ‘I just got the best wave of my life’ but because I didn’t have any documentation of it, for the next few days it was just a cool moment I had with myself that I got to tell everyone about,” she said.
“I was totally OK if it didn’t get photographed.”
A message hit her Instagram inbox four days later; a low-res image of Enever surfing down the towering wall of water.
It came with a caption: “I think this is the biggest wave ever paddled by a woman.”
“My jaw dropped,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it was me on that wave.
“When I sent the photo to my family they were kind of like, ‘what the hell is wrong with you?’ But then they were so proud.”
By April, Enever had collected a series of photos and video of her ridiculous ride. She sent them in to the WSL as part of its Big Wave Record Chase.
The Chase, with a total prize pool of $770,000, was created to give surfers the incentive to seek out world records across the paddle-in and tow-in big-wave categories.
After a collaborative effort from the WSL science team to extract stills from the video footage, and using known measurements that included nearby jet skis and Enever’s own body, the height of her wave was confirmed.
This week, she entered the Guinness World Records.
“I had Guinness World Record books every Christmas when I was a kid,’’ Enever said. “Mum would always get them for me, so this is pretty surreal.
“When I left the (Championship) Tour for my love of big-wave surfing, I didn’t do it to chase records or awards.
“For me, big-wave surfing is about pushing myself, finding my way around the line-up and connecting with the ocean to put myself on a big, beautiful wave.
“When I caught that wave I knew it was the biggest I had ever caught but I didn’t know how big it was. I didn’t even think about the world record.
“After being on the Tour for seven years … my whole career, I always wanted to work towards being a world champion.
“The beauty of this moment for me is I’ve been able to have so many different seasons in my life through surfing.
“You never know what surprises life will throw at you if you are willing to open a door and walk through it.
“When I left the Tour I had so many doubts and was so worried that I had made the wrong decision.
“I’m so happy I trusted my gut and did what I wanted to do.”
With her name now in the record books, Enever is readying for another big-wave season.
For four months of the year, the Sydneysider is on call for big breaks around the world.
At times she is given little more than 48 hours’ notice to fly from one side of the world to the other.
Armed with a new-found confidence and sizeable chunk of the $770,000 prize purse, she has her eyes on greater heights.
“It was such a breakthrough moment for me mentally, being able to back myself and commit (to the wave),” Enever said.
“These past 11 months have motivated me, if I do go back, to do things slightly differently, work on my surfing and eventually get an even bigger one.”
Originally published as Guinness World Records Laura Enever: Australian surfer opens up about her 13.3m wave in Hawaii
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