Big Mama

A wave that’s over 30 metres high and the story of the first man who rode it.

Full English Translation available

On 17 January 2018, in Nazarè, in Portugal, the surfer Hugo Vau rides the tallest ever wave, the legendary Big Mama, the mother of all waves, for which he’d been waiting seven years. And he lives to tell the tale.

This book is the story of that epic day but also that of its protagonist, an ordinary man in love with the sea since childhood, but who only after his mother’s death decides to change his life and devote himself entirely to his passion and live on beaches, sleep in this car and earn a living by fishing in the Azores. A man who’s always experienced surfing in its purest philosophy, as a connection with the ocean and nature.

Together, Fabio Pozzo and this protagonist reconstruct one of the most impressive sporting feats of recent years, as well as the story of a man who, in his own words, “received a gift from the ocean”.