The Chick Charges
With Teahupoo going absolutely haywire on November 1, Maya Gabeira held her own in conditions that had Tahitian stalwarts like Manoa Drollet, Raimana Van Bastolear, Laird Hamilton and Shane Dorian hanging on for dear life, and in the process she proved to the world that being a girl from Brazil is hardly a handicap. But don’t listen to our chauvinistic voice, here’s what she had to say: What stands out most about that day?
What stands out? I think just being out there surfing with all my heroes and having so much support coming from all of them. It was just a dream coming true.
What goes through your mind as you’re towing into these kind of waves?
My best wave, which was the third one, I was just thinking I had to go as fast as I could to make it to the channel. I had two very heavy wipeouts earlier, so I just wanted to make that wave really bad. I really didn’t want to get beat down again.
Now that you’ve done it, would you do it again?
I don’t ever want a miss a day like that again. I’m working on getting better equipment and hopefully I can go a bit bigger and deeper, it just demands so much time to gain more experience.
Word is it was pretty crowded the day, was it hard for you out there will all of the male egos and competitiveness?
No, not really. Fortunately I had the best possible drivers—Raimana, Carlos Burle, Danilo Couto and then Jamie
Sterling—all out there
helping me and guiding me. I feel like all of the guys out there were
very supportive with thefact I was trying to surf it that big. The
guys made me believed I could do it and even after the wipeouts of my
life Carlos came and towed me into that big one. Without their help
none of that would've happened.
How did you and Carlos hook-up as a tow team?
We met through surfing, but our relationship got a lot stronger this year when I started to ride for Red Bull, which is his sponsor also. And now we are really good friends and we have been traveling a lot together. It’s great.
What got you into big-wave riding?
When I was 17 I went to Hawaii for the first time and from there started to dream about it and work hard to be able to surf Waimea, Sunset and Pipe. It just grew from there.
Where do you see women like yourself taking big-wave riding?
We’ll be traveling the world chasing big storms, just like anybody else that likes to ride huge waves.
I don’t ever want a miss a day like that again. I’m working on getting better equipment and hopefully I can go a bit bigger and deeper, it just demands so much time to gain more experience.
Word is it was pretty crowded the day, was it hard for you out there will all of the male egos and competitiveness?
No, not really. Fortunately I had the best possible drivers—Raimana, Carlos Burle, Danilo Couto and then Jamie
Sterling—all out there
helping me and guiding me. I feel like all of the guys out there were
very supportive with thefact I was trying to surf it that big. The
guys made me believed I could do it and even after the wipeouts of my
life Carlos came and towed me into that big one. Without their help
none of that would've happened.How did you and Carlos hook-up as a tow team?
We met through surfing, but our relationship got a lot stronger this year when I started to ride for Red Bull, which is his sponsor also. And now we are really good friends and we have been traveling a lot together. It’s great.
What got you into big-wave riding?
When I was 17 I went to Hawaii for the first time and from there started to dream about it and work hard to be able to surf Waimea, Sunset and Pipe. It just grew from there.
Where do you see women like yourself taking big-wave riding?
We’ll be traveling the world chasing big storms, just like anybody else that likes to ride huge waves.
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