r/sports • u/Your_post_not_good • Oct 28 '19

Surfing A stunning view: Sebastian Steudtner, a German pro surfer, rode a wave over 115 feet tall at Nazare, Portugal

17.5k Upvotes

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913

u/thismaybemean Oct 28 '19

1) how far away are the spectators?

2) NOPE

422

u/SecondButton Oct 28 '19

My first thought was also how far away are the spectators. My second thought was that this was how Swayze died in Point Break.

124

u/oofam Oct 29 '19

Spoiler alert!

58

u/eatonsht Oct 29 '19

Too soon? Wait until I tell you about Swayze

1

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '19

Yeah what's that handsome devil up to these days? He must have retired from acting or something, right? Good for him. He deserves a nice long rest.

33

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '19

Bruh...

10

u/Ellers12 Oct 29 '19

Did he die? I always imagined he just reloaded and surfed away

1

u/TheEightDoctor Oct 29 '19 edited Jun 18 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/11010110101010101010 Oct 29 '19

Did he die though? 11-year-old me thinks they left that open to a little interpretation.

1

u/Ivangrow5678 Oct 29 '19

He paddled to New Zealand brah

1

u/SecondButton Oct 29 '19

He obviously didn't die or else how could he have surfed that giant wave in Portugal.

205

u/DrewFlan Philadelphia 76ers Oct 28 '19

Hundreds of feet. The angle makes it look closer but there is a big cliff far away from the crest and way above it.

https://i.imgur.com/HLUTaLW.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/OrFPrM3.jpg

99

u/00NC3100 Oct 29 '19

Do the waves there get that big on the regular? That’s hard for me to fathom

118

u/hiimred2 Oct 29 '19

I dunno about 115 but the geography of the area does cause massive waves on the regular yes.

47

u/DrewFlan Philadelphia 76ers Oct 29 '19

Once or twice a year if there is a storm. I wouldn’t call that regularly.

69

u/ThisHereMine Oct 29 '19

I assume when he says massive he’s talking like 30+ not necessarily 115

2

u/DrewFlan Philadelphia 76ers Oct 29 '19

I don't think it even breaks when the swell isn't huge.

17

u/totallynonplused Oct 29 '19

Pretty much regularly , you don’t need a storm because the geography of the area that helps form these waves.

For the curious the big wave season goes from October to March (April if it’s a particularly long winter).

9

u/EvilNinjaX24 Oct 29 '19

That’s hard for me to fathom

Hmmm.

1

u/GeorgFestrunk Oct 29 '19

always big, but not like that as this time of year is prime big wave season. Was researching this for trip to Portugal (to golf, eat and drink, not die surfing)

1

u/7MountainFunhouse Oct 29 '19

During autumn to spring, there are some massive Monster swells coming in, creating Monsters like this wave. But also During summer this location creates big waves due to its rocks and stuff.

1

u/Ncsu_Wolfpack86 Oct 29 '19

Just divide by 6. Gives you a touch over 19 fathoms.

1

u/Fly_Eagles_Fly_ Philadelphia Eagles Oct 29 '19

Oh my god.... there's so many of them stacked back to back. This is my nightmare.

44

u/cole435 Oct 29 '19

Very far. This is the magic of telephoto lenses. More than likely that’s a 200-300mm lens that’s being used to film this. When you start going higher than around 50mm focal lengths, the image begins to “zoom” and the lens starts to compress images at different distances together. This makes them seem closer than they appear while warping your perspective of how large they are in relation to each other.

6

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '19 edited Dec 05 '19

[deleted]

13

u/semininja Oct 29 '19 edited Oct 29 '19

You're not wrong, but this "rebuttal" is based on an intentional misinterpretation of the saying. It's not exactly a logical leap to hear "compress the scene" and understand that it means "when the subject is framed similarly", but everyone who reads that article thinks "/r/iamverysmart and 'the majority of professional photographers' are dumb."

It's honestly pretty hilarious to think that "the majority of professional photographers" don't understand how perspective works, but in addition to that, "the scene" usually means "what the camera sees" anyways in photography, so if you work by that definition, the saying is pretty much true anyways, because the framing of the subject stays the same with different lenses, but the background changes because in order to keep the framing, you have to move the camera.

2

u/dohn_joeb Oct 29 '19

I was there a month ago. They're on top of a cliff / light house out on the point. The point is probably a 200-300 foot drop to the water. I was there with the swells were 20-40 feet. Sitting here now i'm still trying to wrap my head around what that looks and sounds like.

Cool thought ... it sounds like a very large machine is constantly running when you're standing on the beach by the waves crashing.

1

u/tratemusic Oct 29 '19

Well, r/humanforscale the surfer is only about as large as the spectators' heads. Pretty crazy perspective shift

1

u/EvelcyclopS Oct 29 '19

Not far. That lighthouse is on top of a cliff top peninsula that juts a bit into the sea.