It seems like just yesterday that we were declaring it open season for the world's most nutty big wave surfers at one of the world's most nutty big waves. Now, with summer on the horizon across the Northern Hemisphere, the mist is settling at Nazaré, so it's time to take stock of the damage.
Since that first day in October, filmer Alex Laurel has been present for nearly every massive swell that came pouring across the Portuguese coast. From his stack of mind-blowing clips, there was an equally as impressive pile of absolutely terrifying wipeouts – the best of which are now ready for your eyeballs in the edit above.
Session after session, guys like Andrew Cotton, Kai Lenny, Tom Lowe, Lucas Chumbo and Alex Botelho were on hand, no matter how gnarly the conditions got. They paid a price, of course, for their dedication – and luckily everyone is heading into summer happy, healthy, and ready for another season of big, cold Naz.
Stay tuned for more highlights packages from the 2016/17 winter that was – we'll be rolling them out over the next few weeks.
#HitAndRun