Photo: Nic von Rupp//YouTube
It’s been a slow start to the winter for Nazaré. Though swells typically start to arrive in October, this year went well into November with nothing. That explains why, when waves finally did appear at the famed break, it was absolutely jam-packed. In a video posted to his YouTube channel, Nic von Rupp gave us a glimpse at what he’s calling the most crowded day he’s ever seen at Nazaré, and a play-by-play of the stomach-wrenching wipeout he endured as a result.
The wipeout in question starts around 4:10 in the video below. Nic is towing into a wave described as “small for Nazaré, massive for anywhere else,” when a paddler appears high up on the face ahead of him. As he executes a quick check turn, the paddler hits a bump and flies forward off his board, right into von Rupp’s feet. Nic goes flying head over heels, and the last we see of him is his yellow wetsuit getting sucked over the falls into a nightmarish mass of whitewash that would no doubt kill the average surfer.
“I was going down the wave. I couldn’t see from a dead angle and all of a sudden I get hit by something. I looked to the side and it’s a fucking guy,” described von Rupp afterwards, perched on the back of a rescue ski. “I didn’t know if it was a ski or if it was a board. All of a sudden, I get pounded and I’m getting tumbled underwater. His board is right here. I’m right next to him. It was for sure the gnarliest whiteout I’ve ever had here at Nazaré, man. Crazy.”
