California’s Alo Slebir unofficially broke the big wave surfing world record | Hacker News Reader

California’s Alo Slebir unofficially broke the big wave surfing world record

sfgate.com

The article appears a few days old since it was before they had the awards. Apparently they had the Big Wave 2025 awards two days ago, and declared that his wave was "only" 76 feet, but he did win the award for Biggest Wave for this year.

Source: (also the awards show is embedded here as a video)

https://www.coastsidenews.com/review/news/santa-cruz-surfer-...

It's so surprising that we don't use a precise method of gauging wave height for these records. AFAIK they still estimate the surfers height while riding, and then count those heights up the side of the wave in a photograph.

I'd imagine we would have a method closer to surveying techniques by now.

there is a new, exotic method for measuring gigantic waves, that uses atmospheric disturbances to gps signals and gravity waves that ocean waves generate. SWOT

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/swot/us-french-swot-satellite-...

I know nothing about surfing but I picked up Barbarian Days on Audible https://www.audible.com/pd/Barbarian-Days-Audiobook/B00YMMTO... and I was captivated. After I finished it I started looking for surf schools within driving distance of my home, still looking for something on the (New) Jersey Shore or Long Island. Anyone have any suggestions?

Not my zone but I saw a few on yelp when I ran a search! Go soon before it gets colder :)

https://skudinsurf.com/ may have something for you. They also do beginner sessions in a mall - https://skudinsurfamericandream.com/

great book!

just took lessons recently with Matt from Lucky Dog Surf School. super chill dude, lots of fun.

Photography of the surfers seems to be an important aspect of the scene. It’d be interesting to read a story about that.

The underground rock formation that generates the Mavericks waves is actually pretty small. Photographers, rescue jetskis, and onlookers on small boats can be on very calm water, while surfers they're watching are riding a 100 ft wave just a few meters away.

It’s how the size of the waves is calculated. They talk about it in the first season of the 100 Foot Waves TV show mentioned in the article. Video from several angles is analyzed using the surfer or another known object for scale.

It’s not easy to measure ocean waves unless you have a jetski riding right on the crest or a LIDAR system on shore which is expensive.

In water photography is especially wild. Check out Leroy Bellet: https://www.surfertoday.com/surfing/the-story-behind-leroy-b...

He rides BEHIND surfers in the barrel. Absolutely nuts.

I wonder if he would describe himself as a construction worker, or maybe he would say he's a surfer who does construction to make a living? Sometimes you can see a struggle to define a person independent of their jobs, why does it matter here?

I see the headline here changed, it used to be: [Calif. construction worker unofficially broke a fabled world record]

>riding (surfing) a world-record-shattering 108-foot-tall wave.

That is rather wild.

Imagine being ten stories up on a freakin' wave. People like this guy are just incredible.

I wonder if people who do things like this and free soloing "just" have some unique wiring in their brain where they don't care about instantaneously dying because of some small mistake they make. Or, is it just a matter of continually ratcheting up the difficulty - "I did a 1 foot wave, why not a 2 foot wave, why not a 3 foot wave, etc"?

They are just suicidal.

I did surf big waves, but certainly not Nazare nor Mavs. That's just too dangerous.

I know very little about surfing, can I ask why it is so dangerous?

The biggest danger is being shredded.

Why is such a wave so big? Because the coast is extremely shallow suddenly. Normally 1m-50cm, but when a big wave comes, all the water in front of the wave is sucked into it back, which makes it about 10-20cm deep. And it is sucked back really fast, because it is not deep. So if you miss such a wave and fall down, you end up there in the impact zone, which is also the shredding zone. There are either rocks or coral reefs, both extremely unhealthy when being shredded along, even if you still have your board. Normally not. And then you are sucked back into the next wave impact zone with high speed, which is un-nicer, because then you are not just shredded along, but also hit big from above into the ground. Where you usually break some arm or leg, or just hit your head into the rock and then drown. The few people who survive this do have professional help by the jet skiers, who try to catch you before the next impact. Your only chance is to get your board from the leach as soon as you get up, and paddle as fast as possible to the side, across the stream to survive the next impact.

It's not interesting at all, pure danger. Like running across a highway without looking.

I think it's easy enough to acclimate to the activity. If you are doing something "normal" like driving 75mph on the highway and make a small mistake, like wrenching the steering wheel to the left , you could easily die or kill someone else. But we hand out licenses like they are candy. Woodworkers using a table saw all day are one small mistake away from permanent maiming , and most don't even bother to spend the extra few hundred dollars to mitigate that risk by upgrading to a SawStop. Most people, I think, are good at telling themselves they are better/smarter/more skilled than the people who get hurt.

Isn't there a place in Portugal (Nazareth?) which has even more massive waves than Mavericks?

Nazare, there’s a show called 100 foot wave that follows a couple of surfers who ride there

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazaré,_Portugal

Thanks, yeah, I misremembered the name. But are Mavericks' waves bigger than Nazare? From the photos I've seen, Nazare's waves are truly massive!

Nazare definitely maxes higher then Mavs

They are typically bigger at Nazare, but it all depends on the swell. Its not impossible for Mavericks to receive a swell that could create waves bigger than whatever Nazare has received in the last 20 years, but it's less likely.

However Mavericks is definitely the "nicer" and gnarlier wave of the two imho, Nazare is massive but has no shape, so they just surf the shoulder for 5 seconds and kick out. Mavericks has much nicer lines.

It's Nazaré (Which is Nazareth in Portuguese.)

There's a series called 100 ft wave on HBO. Great overview of the big wave community.

Also recommend the documentary Riding Giants.

Surfing is the best! Big ups Alo shaka

This site needs to be banned from HN. It's borderline spam employing every trick in the book to maximise your pageview.

Clickbait title, interstitial ads, floating vid, back jacking, newsletter, notification...

When I open the page it's only a third that's content -- and that's only the clickbait title.

What garbage...

While I agree that it's a trash site and an embarrassment to its roots as The Chronicle's website, anyone like yourself who notices how bad it is would do well to take it as a reminder that your adblocker is missing or not working. It appeared as though it were a normal site to me with ublock origin.

Maybe we can just block the actual origin of the ads; No need for excess plugins.

If the origin of ads is hosting fees, I agree. The internet would a lot more fun if everyone’s side projects persisted forever by default.

I'm going to read this article because the image is cool and I love California.

But I had to comment on how obnoxious this website is with my NextDNS mistakingly disabled. What have we done to the Internet! 3 popups to sign up for paid, newsletter and web alerts. scroll down to see auto playing videos, ridiculous full-banner ads.

wow

FWIW, I use noscript and had no issues. Granted there were some blank spots which I guess where ads.

Yep, I've found blocking at at the dns level more convenient since I'd otherwise have to install script blockers per web-browser. I'm very happy with nextdns

I wanted to add that every time I use the internet without a blocker, it's so depressing to realize this is how a lot of people, mostly older, experience the Internet. Very sad as someone in the industry.

Reader mode works wonders for me.

ooh you're right, reader mode is great for this article. thanks

It doesn't always work though, I assume the major publishers are employing some counter-measures. Also generally javascript heavy websites.

Clicking a link within the page in reader mode and then clicking back to reload it almost always works for the stubborn sites IME

More tips to make the Internet suck less here: https://www.smokingonabike.com/2025/08/01/tips-for-making-th...

Though The Chronicle is pretty bad, it is generally what I see when I surf without a Pi-Hole (or choose your fave ad-blocking tool). And, yeah, I honestly don’t know why people put up with it. I offered to put a Pi-Hole on my parent’s network. Mom wrote code for 30 years, she can handle the minimal intervention needed. Nope, they turned me down, they’re fine with things the way they are. First thing they did with that new TV was connect it to the Internet, too. For some folks, the slightest inconvenience is apparently enough to sit and look at ads all day.

Which reminds me that I need to pull a RPi off the shelf and provision another Pi-Hole for the camper now that there’s a Starlink attached. I’m not paying by the byte to have ads delivered.

I still believe there must be space in the universe for an ethical ad network that makes you less money but anyone caught fucking with your readership gets banned. There’s a bunch of sites that would appreciate a little supplemental revenue but just don’t use ads at all because it’s so scummy.

It just has to be better than selling your nonprofit’s contact list to other nonprofits.

When we first built the reddit ads system, this is exactly what we went for. We ran it ourselves, you could only upload a single static image.

Turns out you really can't make a lot of money that way. Especially now. If you don't offer re-targeting and bespoke ads, no one wants to pay you money for ads.

I suspect you would specifically have to target non profits and b corps with your marketing.

But even then the perpetual problem in business is that what people are willing to tell you they want isn’t what they want or need, and they will shift the goalposts on you after they sign up. Cognitive dissonance will become deafening.

Years ago we used to talk regularly about firing customers. My read was that was always about ridding yourselves of the ones who pushed you into becoming someone you couldn’t stand to look at in the mirror. Eventually some of your customers will want the same cyberstalking features they see advertised by another vendor and they will forget why they can’t have it. They’ll sign up with someone who lies to them better than you do.

The question is in anyone actually reading it with those adverts?

That's why I was compelled to post. We forget that this is how the Internet is for large portions of the population. It's bananas.

My dad still uses yahoo for all of his news. I've realized it's not uncommon to hear people use Yahoo as the front page of the internet still in 2025. I get it. Also, it's depressing. (left for the reader to see why. just go to yahoo with blockers off).

Brave browser worked well, and I didn't see any of those, or the blank spaces another commenter was complaining about with their blocker.

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