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HBO’s 100 Foot Wave, which premiered earlier this month, follows a group of big wave riders as they travel the globe hunting for the planet’s biggest swells
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The docuseries is about “so much more” than trying to ride the nearly mythic, much-sought-after hundred-foot wave, director Chris Smith tells PEOPLE
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“It’s taken its toll,” confesses 57-year-old big wave surfer Garrett McNamara on the impact decades worth of wipeouts have had on his body
Garrett McNamara has spent decades pursuing an insatiable passion for surfing waves the size of office buildings while trying to avoid getting pulverized when those swells come crashing down around him with thousands of tons of deadly churning white water.
On a recent afternoon, the 57-year-old big wave surfing legend — who once broke his arm in nine places while riding a 70-footer in 2015 — cheerily admitted that his obsession has wreaked havoc on his body.
“It’s taken a toll,” says McNamara, whose oceanic exploits are chronicled in HBO’s docuseries 100 Foot Wave, which follows Garrett and nearly a dozen other surfers as they travel the globe hunting for the world’s biggest waves.
“I’ve hit the water so many times, really hard and had hundreds of mild concussions, perhaps even a thousand or more,” he tells PEOPLE. “At least of three of them were major concussions. And every time your brain bounces off the inside of your skull you do a little damage that’s really hard to reverse.”
Now in its third season, the series follows McNamara from Nazaré, Portugal — where he first surfed the biggest wave in the world in 2011 — as he and wife Nicole, along with their young kids, search for the ultimate swell.
Joining them are a collection of some of the planet’s most formidable big wave riders, including Andrew “Cotty” Cotton, CJ Macias, Justine DuPont, Lucas “Chumbo” Chianca, Nic von Rupp, Kai Lenny, Pedro “Scooby” Vianna, Tony Laureano, Ian Cosenza and Michelle des Bouillons.
In between traveling to Cortes Bank (located in the Pacific Ocean over a hundred miles off the California coast), Safi, Morocco, Montaldo, Italy, and O’ahu, Hawaii, the series captures the highs, the lows and the tragedies that these extreme athletes are forced to grapple with as they push the limits of what’s possible in their sport.
Courtesy of HBO
Andrew “Cotty” Cotton rides a monster at Cortes Bank, located 111 miles off California’s coast.
The margin for error is razor thin. And in one of the episodes McNamara and others are left trying to make sense of the death of another surfing legend — Márcio “Mad Dog” Freire — the first-ever surfer to die at Nazaré. (His fatal accident is captured in the series.)
“He was a pioneer, a badass and the best surfer in the world,” says McNamara, his voice filled with emotion. “It [his passing] was very challenging for the whole community, especially for those who were there when it happened.”
When asked what is it that makes watching humans trying to surf mountain-sized swells so mesmerizing, 100 Foot director Chris Smith — a non-surfer known for his Tiger King docuseries — insists that McNamara summed it best. “When we first started the project Garrett said to me, ‘little person on big wave. People like that.’ It’s really that simple,” explains Smith. “It immediately connects with people because of the enormity of the wave. Imagining trying to surf down a six or seven story building is just terrifying.”
As the title implies, the series is loosely based on the quest to find and surf the nearly mythic hundred-foot wave. To date, the largest wave ever surfed is a 93.73-footer ridden by Germany’s Sebastian Steudtner in February 2023.
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But Smith admits that after six years spent immersed in the show, the hundred-foot milestone no longer seems all that important. “When we first started, it seemed like it mattered,” says Smith. “But working on this show taught us that it didn’t — and that [the series] is about so much more than that.”
Courtesy of HBO
McNamara at Nazaré, Portugal.
The hard-charging McNamara would wholeheartedly agree. umbled by his countless injuries, these days the father of five — who once braved 33-degree water in Alaska to surf a wave created by a calving glacier (“It’s the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” he confesses) — is still on the hunt for the planet’s largest swells. But the years have also mellowed him and made him realized that any day out on the water is a good day.
“I’ve chosen to make it more of a spiritual practice now,” he says. “It used to be just the opposite for me. But now I’m just grateful to be out there in the water…It’s hard to describe, but when you get in the barrel and you see the lip coming down, you’re in your own little world — and all you can do is try and process the beautiful moment and the freedom of being in the water.”
New episodes of 100 Foot Wave air Thursdays and can be streamed on Max.
Read the original article on People
