WAVES FOR LIFE

Riding big Nazaré became the challenge and succor that Matt Davies required, as he battled his way out of mental health issues brought about by substance abuse. But even getting to that point was almost as challenging as tackling the planet’s most notorious big wave…

Words: Jamie Gray
Photos: Jamie Gray & Mattius Hammer

With the release of his grip from the tow rope, Matt Davies accelerated to speeds exceeding 70 km/h as he descended the lumpy face of the monstrous 45-50ft face Nazaré wave. After two weeks of battling onshore winds, storms, and huge waves with wind chop and bumps way larger than his AXIS 1150 mast could handle, Matt was about to confront everything he had trained for during the 220 days preparing for Nazaré and embracing his new substance-free life.

Balancing on his crouched front leg with his back leg raked forward like a shock absorber to navigate the bumps, Matt descended to the trough of the Nazaré beast. When it seemed everything was falling into place, the front of his board dropped, catapulting him over the handlebars. Matt experienced the hold-down and beating of his life, paying the price for what the experienced call “the Nazaré gift”.

Nazaré has long been a big wave mecca for the world's big wave tow and paddle chargers, but relatively few big wave foilers have taken on the challenge. It's really been a handful of modern day foilers like Welshman Glyn Ovens, Hawaiian Kai Lenny and French charger Matt Etxebarne leading the modern charge. It takes a unique motivation to ride any craft here at Nazaré when it gets big, with every surfer/foiler having their own specific focus to challenge themselves in the heaving, monstrous Nazaré waves. For Matt Davies, who reached a critical point in his life 12 months earlier, where the physical and mental struggles of substance addiction and mental health issues became unbearable, it wasn't just the call of the ocean that formed a big part of his recovery. The challenge of foiling the biggest waves in the world became the focal point and driving force behind turning his life around – for himself and his family.

I reconnected and caught up with Matt after the premiere of the documentary I produced with foil boarder James Casey on his World Downwind Record. When Matt shared with me that just 12 months earlier, he found himself on the ledge, ready to end it all, hitting rock bottom before realizing it was time for significant changes in his life, I understood the depth of his honesty, strength, and vulnerability. His willingness to share his journey to inspire and help others on their own recovery path made me realize I needed to work with Matt and share his experience. Matt had decided to attempt to set not one but two World Records. The first being the biggest wave ever ridden on a foil board and the second being the fastest flat water towed foiler. All while sharing his own story of recovery and his journey through the training aspects required for these attempts. The ripple effect of someone like Matt being brave enough to share their lived experience is a rare and beautiful thing. Before I knew it, we were filming Matt’s preparation for the Nazaré trip, filming interviews, and capturing the lead-up to this epic adventure.

Our two-week window in Nazaré wasn't all unicorns and rainbows. It was a metaphor for Matt's last decade – a series of highs and lows. Nazaré, with its breathtaking “A-frame” waves resembling Egyptian pyramids in size and stature, only lines up perfectly a handful of times a year. So, when we arrived to find super choppy 40 to 60-foot mountainous onshore shifting waves, the pressure and anxiety to catch one of these enormous things grew each day, but the ocean conditions just wouldn't allow Matt to get in the water. We were meeting other surfers around the traps that had been waiting for over a month and hadn't even gotten in the water yet, due to the onshore and bumpy conditions or flats spells with no swell. There was considerable pressure on Matt to perform in these conditions, due to us promoting the documentary about his recovery/journey and trying to set a world record for the biggest wave ever ridden on a foil board. There were a few moments when I questioned if it was too early in Matt's recovery to face this added pressure. In the end, Matt had to put his faith in himself, his training, and the team he had been working with from Australia over the last six months. The ocean would do its own thing; all he could do was work with whatever Mother Nature threw at him.

The Nazaré team

Rafael Tapia, Matt's tow partner, is also sponsored by AXIS and is among the best big wave jetski partners and tow surfers in Nazaré. Matt's laser-focused goal for the past six to twelve months was to throw himself into the biggest beast he could find, but Rafa had witnessed firsthand the raw power of Nazaré. Rafa was Jamie Mitchell's tow partner a few years back, where they came second in the Nazaré big wave comp. During this session, Jamie Mitchell broke his back after being pounded by the lip of a huge set. Despite Matt's pure focus on catching the biggest wave possible, Rafa didn't want to see Matt injured. Rafa, being a talented foiler himself and part of Team AXIS, understood the repercussions of a foil injury at Nazaré's powerful breaks.

Tow surfing big Nazaré requires comprehensive approvals, permits, and multiple jet skis per team for safety. For this trip, we worked with Kyle Richardson, who knows about resilience and overcoming adversity firsthand. Kyle developed paraplegia after an ear infection allowed a bug to enter his body, creating a nerve injury that saw him lose the use of his legs, confining him to a wheelchair for life.

Despite that potential to reduce even the strongest minds to a mess of self-pity after such an injury, Kyle chose a different path. Today, he holds the world record for the biggest wave ever ridden by an adaptive or abled surf ski paddler. Kyle is just one of those people who are made from something extraordinary. At times across the year, Kyle hosts other para and quadriplegics at his home, taking them on jet ski experiences at Nazaré. Strapped onto the ski or hanging onto the sled if they can, so they experience the power of the ocean – a mind-bending experience for anyone, especially someone bound to a chair for life.

Matt had built an inspired and talented team for this journey – individuals with the experience and understanding of why he was here.

Waiting day by day

Nazaré's swells built, but relentless wind and rain created massive, messy onshore conditions, the type no one wanted to ride. Authorities often closed the harbor, and the lone jet skis venturing out would face fines upon return. By the second to last day of our two-week window, Matt had managed to enter the line up three times. Two were to get a feel for the size and power of the ocean at Nazaré, and the third was the only offshore day that allowed numerous teams to hit the water and ride serious waves.

But Nazaré isn't a wave where you can just turn up at and decide to ride the biggest wave. Surfers spend three to six months or more over numerous trips building their knowledge and experience to earn their stripes for the type of wave Matt was looking for. Surfers need to experience the raw power of Nazaré firsthand. The power of Nazaré is so intense, it's a big adjustment for anyone experiencing it for the first time, with power many times more heavier than the biggest waves they had ridden back home due to the deep ocean trenches that guide the swells into the Nazaré line up. It has multiple peaks, each offering different challenges. As much as Matt caught some bombs on this session, it was a learning curve, and they weren't the waves we’d traveled across the world for.

As the clock ticked towards our last 48 hours in Nazaré, 45 km/h winds from a huge Atlantic storm made foiling impossible. One surf tow team managed to catch several waves, to the delight of some 2000 spectators lined up on the cliffs to watch what the media outlets were calling one of the biggest storms in several years. But the lumps and bumps rendered it unfoilable as 50-65ft blown out chunky mountains rolled in. The emotion and pressure on Matt was bubbling below the surface. The disappointment and self-imposed pressure were evident. He knew these final 24 hours were going to be his last chance, and he was determined to leave with his head held high.

On the morning the day before our flights back to Sydney, the shore break boomed a few hundred meters from our apartment. It was still massive. It seemed Matt would have one last chance to capture the wave he had dreamed of his whole life – the wave that defined his recovery for the last 220 days.

As Matt's fiancée and spotter, Rachel, and I made our way to the cliff to set up cameras, Matt had already been towed into his first wave. Rachel relayed information over the radio to Rafa, allowing him to pick up Matt before the following wave smashed him on the inside. Matt, Rafa and Kyle were working well together, with Matt picking up three solid early waves before a massive set stood on the horizon. Rafa placed Matt perfectly on a huge right-hander, a wave with at least a 45-50ft face. With more speed than he had ever experienced, Matt navigated massive bumps and drops on the foil. These were conditions that kept every other team off the water except Queensland lifeguard and big wave charger, Clint Kimmins. This was big, onshore, scary-as-hell Nazaré. Matt knew this was his last chance, and signaled to Rafa that he was ready for the biggest set.

Matt and Rafa had worked out that towing Matt in from the mid-part of the wave was the best way for him to handle the intense speed required to make it down the face of waves of this size. This time, on a huge left-hander, Matt raced a massive section that he did an amazing job to outrun after making a clean line down the face and picking his angle. But after being clipped by a bump and slightly overcorrecting, he was tossed like a ragdoll. Hitting the water hard, narrowly avoiding the foil of his board, before being swallowed by the mountainous wall of water which had raced up behind him, Matt was sucked over the falls of a 45-50ft monster. Matt surrendered to the experience and caught one last breath before taking the flogging of his life.

“I decided not to pull my inflation vest for the initial impact. I was waiting for it to let me go. The impact felt like being hit by a bus with a mattress strapped to the front of it. Eventually, I was released by the exploding whitewash after it felt like it was trying to rip my arms off, only to get half a breath in before the next wave came crashing down on me. It's funny, but all I could think of was my breath and oxygen coaches Sean and Jack, and the amount of training that I had put in over the last six to twelve months. I knew I had to relax and let the wave do its thing,” shared Matt. “By the time I was picked up by Rafa on the jet ski, I had swallowed some water from the foam on the surface and was pretty rattled after taking four or five on the head, but the training and preparation I had put in with up to four-minute underwater breath holds and numerous underwater training sessions three nights a week had really paid off and literally saved my bacon. Panicking in a situation like that is exactly where people come unstuck if they hadn't put in the time.”

As Rafa dropped Matt to the beach to regroup and eventually made his way back to Kyle and the safety team to call an end to the session, one thing was clear. In Matt's mind, world record or not, he had done what he set out to do. He’d put himself in the lion's den, and truly tested his mettel, finishing his Nazaré experience with his head held high. Matt's drive and focus to train for this exact moment had been relentless and inspired. To witness his journey of taking the first stage of recovery from addiction and depression, and managing ADHD was like a metaphor for the last two weeks in Nazaré. Nothing was easy. Every hurdle needed to be met head-on, with a strong support team to navigate the highs and lows. With dedication, resilience, and the right people around you, anything is possible. For Matt, that meant riding the biggest wave of his life at Nazaré.

Matt's journey of recovery has only just begun, and there will be plenty of speed bumps and hurdles along the way. Even after typing up this challenging story of our two weeks at Nazaré, I can't help but be reminded of the immense benefits and rewards we all can experience when brave enough to challenge ourselves on multiple levels. As much as this was about Matt's journey, I have him to thank for the life lessons I've learned along the way. With his passion and focus to reach his goals, and change his life for the better, I know in my heart the world is his oyster, and many people will be watching closely to see what he tackles next.

With plans for a Hawaii trip in the early stages, it's only a matter of time before we see more epic footage of Matt Davies pushing the limits of what's possible on a foil board and his quest to ride the biggest waves in the world on foil.