Francisco Porcella has one of the most diverse resumes in the surfing world: big waves, BASE jumping, snowboarding, modeling. The man has a plan. Photo: World Surf League
I watch as Francisco Porcella saunters on the beach sidewalk passing wetsuited groms, cashmere-shouldered Parisians, and weathered Biarritz pensioners. Decked out in a cream linen, wool, and silk blend blazer ($2,950) and matching pleated trousers (a steal at just over a grand) he beamed his million-watt smile and best blue steel straight down the barrel of the camera. Then without breaking stride, he winked at me and launched into his throaty, and infectious chuckle, laughing at the absurdity of it all.
The American-born, Italian-raised, Maui-based big wave surfer is on a shoot for high-end fashion platform Mr Porter (the male version of Net-a-porter) modeling for Italian designer Brunello Cucinelli. Just a few months before he had claimed the Red Bull Ride of The Year Award, for an epic barrel ridden at Jaws in 2022 that many considered the best wave ever ridden backside there. That went with his XXL Biggest Wave Award, won in 2017 for a Nazare bomb measured at 73 feet high.
Increasingly though, he is making a career out of the water. In high demand as a fashion model, he was also a finalist in Italy’s Dancing With Stars TV show a few years ago. To his ballroom dancing skills, we can add backcountry snowboarding, BASE jumping, wingsuit flying, and windsurfing to one of surfing’s most eclectic, and underrated resumes.
“With these types of gigs, you need to click into the situation and the vibe straight away, and that allows you to feel confident,” he told The Inertia. “And like in the ocean, you need to remain humble and alive to any changes but have that belief in who you are and why you are there. That means you can commit totally.”
The Mr Porter shoot was going down in the sheltered Biarritz beach of Port Vieux in France. It was from this cove that the Basque whalers first set out to hunt their quarry in the 12th Century. So effective were they, the boats had to keep traveling further west into the Atlantic Ocean, eventually reaching the Americas, a good few hundred years before Columbus “discovered” the continent.
Francisco’s old man, Pietro, had made a similar pilgrimage in the 1980s. Having met a Yankee girl in his hometown of Cagliari, Sardinia, the sports reporter and pioneering windsurfing journalist had traveled to New York to cover an event in Madison Square Garden. There he was introduced to the girl’s sister, Kirsten, who would eventually become his wife. Francisco was born in New York in 1986, and his brother Niccolo followed the year after. The family returned to Italy when Francisco was five.
“My original plan was to be a professional soccer player. I was signed by the local Italian Serie A (Italy’s top flight division) team Cagliari and played in all my age groups,” he said. “I played striker and was super quick. A lot of my teammates went on to become elite footballers.”
However, with his dad a keen windsurfer who visited Hawaii every year, both brothers developed a love of ocean sports. Eventually, the family relocated to Maui when Francisco was 14. For a living, his dad revamped the Aloha Classic, a once-famous windsurfing event that hadn’t taken place for a few years.
Francisco quickly transitioned from windsurfing to surfing, and by his late teens was a regular at his local spot, Jaws. Initially tow surfing the waves, he was part of the paddle push led by Ian Walsh and Shane Dorian that began around 2011. Yet despite being at the vanguard of the Jaws scene, just before winning the XXL Biggest Wave Award, a lack of sponsorship meant he was almost ready to give up on his professional surfing dream.
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That award however opened a few doors, which Porcella swiftly walked through. The Dancing Show (and a romance with his partner) elevated his exposure in Italy. His athletic ability and natural good looks meant his modeling career also took off.
“The modeling allows a professionalism that is not based in the ocean. I’m able to change it up and feel solid and confident in who I am,” he said. “There’s still a lot of preparation. You want to know what you want to look like and there’s research on the locations and the designer. You want to walk in knowing your shit.”
And while Francisco added backcountry snowboarding and joined his brother in becoming a proficient BASE jumper and wingsuit flyer, the modeling and reality TV (he also made the Final in Italy’s version of Race Around the World, filmed in Africa), are still side hustles to his main gig as a big wave surfer.
In some ways, that side of his career has been relatively unheralded. Yet on any major swell event in the last decade, be it Jaws, Nazare, Teahupo’o, Maverick’s, or Puerto, Porcella has invariably been in the mix with the world’s best big wave surfers, and sometimes on the biggest, or best, wave of the session.
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And that isn’t about to change anytime soon. Even in Biarritz, as the sun seeped into the Bay of Biscay and he stepped out of the linen suit, and into cotton blend drawstring shorts (€500) and a cream biscuit bomber jacket ($5,580, plus delivery), he showed me a forecast of an impending purple blob heading for Tahiti. He was immediately on the phone booking flights to get there before the swell did.
“I believed in my passion and in my dream of being a professional big wave surfer. I saw my potential, I held on to it and I believed in it to the end,” he said. “And while I love the mountains, and all the other opportunities like this gig outside of the water, getting a massive barrel, or riding a huge wave is still the driver for me. And I can’t see that changing.”
