CNN
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Poised on a surfboard and dwarfed by a tower of water some 10 times her size, fear is one of the first emotions that big wave surfer Laura Crane feels before she hurtles down a 60-foot behemoth.
“From the moment you let go of that rope and you see this mountain of water starting to grow behind you, there are instant feelings of fear that are, of course, like a bodily reaction,” Crane told CNN Sports.
With waves ranging from 25 feet to, at times, over 70 feet, big wave surfers can reach speeds of up to 100 kph (around 62 mph) as they charge down the biggest walls of water. If they fall or wipeout, any impact that they take could is comparable to that of a car crash.
But far from dissuading her from surfing down the crest of the roaring water, British surfer Crane uses her fear to drive her.
“I see fear as more of a catalyst for the fact that something amazing is about to happen and excites me – it prepares me to take on what I’m about to take on. It makes me super alert, super ready, and it also reminds me to calm myself and to prove to myself that I have the ability to calm myself in those fearful moments,” she added.
Crane is one of a small number of women who have taken on the waves at Nazaré, a Portuguese fishing village renowned for its 100-foot giants.
The threat of those waves is not baseless: big-wave waterman Mark Foo drowned at California’s Mavericks in 1994, while Hawaii local Todd Chesser died surfing a huge swell on an outer reef off the North Shore in 1997. Concussions, broken bones and spinal damage are common in the sport, and jetski drivers need to be on hand to rescue athletes from the water.
“When the waves are really, really, really big, it’s almost like you get hit by a train if you fall,” Guatemalan-American big wave surfer Polly Ralda told CNN Sports.
“Sometimes, you fall and nothing happens. Other times, you fall and you get destroyed – dislocated shoulder, dislocated legs – and it happens to everybody.”
“It’s ruthless: you get beat up, it’s very dangerous, I’ve blacked out, I’ve almost died so many times,” Ralda added.
‘It just changes their perspective on what they think women are capable of’
Surfing’s roots can be traced back to as early as the 12th century in premodern Hawaii and Polynesia, and big wave surfing has steadily made its way into the mainstream, with competitions at world famous surfing spots including Nazaré, Pe’ahi (also known as Jaws) in Maui and Waimea Bay in Oahu garnering significant media attention.
But inclusion in prestigious competitions, and the sponsorships and prize money that come as a result, have often not been accessible to women, who have been excluded from contests.
It’s been less than a decade since, in 2016, women were first allowed to compete in the World Surf League’s big wave competition, after years of back and forth between surfers and organizers who, among other reasons, had argued the competitions were too dangerous for women.
It was even more recently that in 2018, the WSL announced it would offer equal prize money to male and female athletes in its competitions – becoming the first and only US-based global sports league to do so.
In most big wave competitions, men still get more spots than women, based on competition qualification rules.
CNN has reached out to the WSL for more information about competition entry requirements and stipulations.
Crane told CNN Sports that when she was a teenager, she told a career adviser that she wanted to be a professional surfer.
“She literally laughed at me and was like, ‘Oh, Laura, that’s so sweet. But you know, you’re from the UK, and girls don’t really do that,’” she recalled.
Crane retired from surfing for a number of years after feeling disillusioned with the industry, where she was made to feel that women were only valued for their appearances.
“There wasn’t much space for women to push their physical limits and to do the things that I really felt passionate about doing. We were much more expected to just pose in our bikini and get as many views as possible,” she added.
She eventually found her way back to surfing, and this time, she wanted to chase a bigger and better destiny.
“It takes a lot of guts to get out there on the biggest days,” Crane said.
“You definitely have to earn your respect, as everybody does, in the big wave world. I do believe that, on a big day, everyone is equal because if you’re out there, you do have the respect of the men.”
Still, Crane said there is a disparity between what male and female surfers can earn in their surfing careers.
“It might not be necessarily not paying women the same, but just the opportunities are definitely a lot less,” she explained to CNN Sports, citing fewer competition spots and sponsorship opportunities for women.
When competitions don’t have equal spots for men and women, “it then doesn’t put us on that same platform,” she explained.
Ralda agreed, saying that to her knowledge, there’s only two women who have earned a sponsorship “solely because of big wave surfing.”
‘Like Evel Knievel jumping over a canyon’
Filmmaker Sachi Cunningham told CNN Sports that women’s surfing has seen “the most tremendous growth” in the last 15 years. But despite this, she explained, there is still a lack of funding in films focusing on women in big wave surfing, despite documentaries like “100 Foot Wave” which focus on men in the sport.
“It’s a birthright for men to do these dangerous things and to break barriers. But for women, it’s only recently that that’s even been presented as a possibility,” she explained.
“Big wave surfing is just a little microcosm of all halls of power. And I think that until we’re equal in all of those arenas, there’s work to be done.”
It is clear to Cunningham how important it is to showcase women’s journeys in big wave surfing.
“You see this tiny person on a 60-foot wave, and you’re just gobsmacked: it’s like Evel Knievel jumping over a canyon or something. It’s not too hard to see what an extraordinary feat this is for any human, they’re very obviously pushing the limits of what humans are capable of doing,” she explained.
“Then when you realize it’s a woman, I think that just blows open the whole world to a lot of people – it just changes their perspective on what they think women are capable of.”
Still, she said there are few films about women in the sport.
“There’s obviously interest in big wave surfing, and there still isn’t really anything about the women in big wave surfing,” Cunningham added.
Crane said to CNN: “We’re out there on the biggest days, like the boys, we’re training just as hard as them, we should get that same opportunity.”
Ralda explained that beyond competition spots and equal pay, there are even simpler signs that women don’t have equal standing to men in the sport.
“We’re using men’s wetsuits: Patagonia inflations are for men, even the flotation, the one that you pull, have two canisters here that are not meant for people with chests, with breasts. Everything is created for guys, and we’re just following along,” she explained.
“We have to be brave enough to create our own, and by creating our own, we have to accept that we don’t surf like guys, and that’s okay: I’m not a guy. I shouldn’t surf like a guy,” she added.
Some have campaigned for women’s inclusion in established big wave competitions. Cunningham’s upcoming film “SheChange,” which is still a work in progress, follows pro surfers Bianca Valenti, Paige Alms, Keala Kennelly and Andrea Moller as they fight for equal access and equal pay at Mavericks, a big wave surf competition named after a surf break of the same name off the coast south of San Francisco.
“Some of the pioneer girls of the sport, like the ones that came before me, they decided to take an approach of: ‘We want to be included in the same events. We surf the same.’ And I would disagree. I think it’s so much different,” Ralda, who founded women’s surfing group “Big Wave Babes,” said to CNN.
Ralda and others, however, would prefer separate competitions. “What we do as women surfing big waves, we’re not like men, our bodies are designed differently. We’re more prone to injury, especially on the knees, because we don’t have the muscles. I don’t want to surf with the guys. I want to surf another competition with the girls. Twenty-five feet is already big (for me).
“I would want to advocate for different opportunities, not the same opportunity. There’s no way that you’re gonna shine if you’re even compared to the best big wave surfers, males, in the world.”
Crane said that since she first entered surfing, and then big wave surfing, the industry has changed for the better.
“I think there is a lot of respect, definitely within the industry. I do believe that there’s just a little bit of cautiousness about letting the girls have too much of their own show,” she explained.
“I just think there’s an element of everyone seeing that we are actually marketable in our own rights. Finally, and I do think that maybe there is a side that is not quite ready for that moment yet – it’ll come.”