Nazaré, Mavericks and Jaws: Not the Same Wave at All

Three breaks, three different mechanisms, and an ongoing argument about what "biggest" even means. Here's how Nazaré actually compares to California's Mavericks and Maui's Jaws.

Ask a big-wave surfer which spot is "the biggest" and you'll usually get a hedge, not an answer. Nazaré, Mavericks and Jaws are the three names that come up whenever the conversation turns to the largest rideable waves on Earth, but they're genuinely different waves, produced by different seafloor geometry, and measured — and argued about — in different ways. Here's an honest comparison.

Nazaré, Portugal

Nazaré's size comes from the Nazaré Canyon, the largest submarine canyon in Europe, which funnels and amplifies incoming Atlantic swell directly onto Praia do Norte. The result is a wave that's less about a violent reef and more about sheer accumulated scale — long, rolling, and huge. Surf journalists have noted that Nazaré's face can be so gently sloped that the distance from lip to trough is genuinely enormous even when the vertical height measurement is smaller than the wave looks. Nazaré runs roughly October to March and holds the current official record: Sebastian Steudtner's Guinness-ratified 26.21 m (86 ft) ride from October 2020. It's almost exclusively a tow-in wave at real size — paddling in at record scale hasn't happened here.

Mavericks, California

Mavericks breaks off Pillar Point, Half Moon Bay, about 20 miles south of San Francisco, where a shallow, uneven reef forces incoming Pacific swell to jack up and break with unusual violence — a top-to-bottom, ledging wave rather than Nazaré's long roll. Regularly reaching 25 feet and up to 60 feet or more in exceptional swells, Mavericks has a reputation among big-wave surfers as one of the most physically punishing waves in the world, independent of its measured height — the impact per wave is simply more concentrated. Worth knowing: a widely reported 108-foot wave claimed at Mavericks was re-measured by the WSL and confirmed at 76 feet, a good illustration of how contested these numbers get. Mavericks runs November to March, in step with Pacific winter storms.

Jaws (Pe'ahi), Hawaii

Jaws, on Maui's north shore about three miles east of Pā'ia, is a reef break shaped to magnify incoming north-through-northeast swell into clean, powerful, heavily barrelling waves — routinely described in the 30-to-80-foot range on the biggest days, with a right-hand wave good enough that some of the sport's best surfers paddle it rather than tow, even at serious size. That matters for one specific record: the largest wave ever paddled into (not towed) belongs to American surfer Aaron Gold at Jaws, measured at 19.2 m (63 ft) — a feat that hasn't been matched at Nazaré or Mavericks. Jaws' season runs roughly November to March, driven by swells that travel down from the Aleutian storm track.

Why comparing "biggest" is genuinely hard

Wave height isn't measured the same way everywhere, and even where the method is consistent (photogrammetry, using a surfer's known height as scale), a steep, ledging wave like Mavericks can look and feel far bigger than a tall, gently sloped Nazaré face measured at the same number. Add in that unratified claims at all three spots have exceeded 90 feet in recent years — Nazaré's own 28.57 m (93.7 ft) 2024 wave remains provisional — and "biggest" becomes less a fact than an ongoing argument the sport hasn't fully settled.

The same winter, three different waves

Because all three breaks run on roughly the same Northern Hemisphere winter storm cycle, elite big-wave surfers often chase swells across all of them in a single season — towing into Nazaré one week, paddling Jaws the next, taking a beating at Mavericks in between. Each wave asks something different of the surfer: Nazaré rewards raw commitment on a wave that's simply enormous; Mavericks punishes any mistake with concentrated force; Jaws rewards technical surfing at a scale most breaks can't offer. None of that is a ranking — it's the reason serious big-wave surfing treats all three as essential rather than interchangeable.

Why Nazaré is worth the trip regardless of the numbers

If you're comparing spots purely to decide where to go watch, Nazaré has a practical edge over the other two: the viewing is free, close, and doesn't require a boat. The clifftop at Forte de São Miguel Arcanjo puts you almost directly above the lineup — a vantage point Mavericks and Jaws simply don't offer to the casual visitor.

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