Caio Vaz is having one helluva first trip to New Zealand. He says he’s been hoping to come here for a long time but hasn’t been able to make it until now, as one of eight competitors in the second running of The Ultimate Waterman.
And it’s been a long road out of Brazil with a few twists to get to this point, where Vaz stands as the reigning world champion of the SUP World Tour. As a kid Caio was competing and surfing on shortboards, balanced with modeling and acting opportunities all over the world. His style shows it when he’s drawing sharp, vertical turns in ways that make you forget he’s standing on 7+ feet of foam. That all started when Dad brought a SUP home for “small days,” and Caio realized how much fun he could have on waves that weren’t too inviting for shortboads. At around 17 years old Caio says he was falling behind in the competitive shortboard world and he eventually lost his sponsor; perhaps a casualty of the balancing act between being a professional athlete and a show business talent. He never stopped surfing though, and his prowess on a SUP got him into SUP World Tour events. Three years later he was the world champion. Fast forward a few more months and he’s finally getting to enjoy that first trip to New Zealand.
So now Caio is getting his introduction to life on South Island by crossing off a few bucket list items. Bungee jumping in Queenstown has now been topped with a helicopter ride to a wave that’s almost as far south as anything you’ll find on the globe. The only thing that seemed to make it sweeter was the fact that a head high, secret, empty left point break was waiting for him at the end of the ride. At least by Californian or Brazilian standards it’s empty, with maybe two or three people in the lineup. That’s a unicorn in today’s surf world. Vaz is about to paddle out here for his first heat in The Ultimate Waterman’s SUP Surf event. But you get the sense he’s just more stoked to get a proper surf than anything else. In the past few days he’s competed in a 16 kilometer (10 miles) outrigger canoe race and a psychotic 40 minute paddleboard race through head high surf at Piha. When I ask him how often he trains for either he simply says, “not so much.” And he’s kind of enjoying it that way.
“It’s exciting because you don’t put a lot of pressure on yourself, you can just be another one of the guys and relax and try to do your best,” he says. So there he is before his heat, just one of the boys. Two of his World Tour competitors, Connor Baxter and Zane Schweitzer, are in today’s competition as well. Vaz is giving Mark Visser and Manoa Drollet tips on how to beat them by mimicking the body mechanics for getting all that foam so vertical on a wave. The scene puts a refreshing twist on the average surfer’s snarky perspective of SUPs: two of the most talented adrenaline chasers on the planet taking pointers from an all around amazing surfer, who just so happens to also be one of the best in the world with a paddle.
Editor’s Note: Learn more about The Ultimate Waterman, the athletes competing for the title, and follow them on Facebook here.
