By Davan 
Slebir, a 23-year-old Santa Cruz local, caught It’s too early to know if Slebir truly did break the world record. Judging surf wave heights is inherently difficult and contentious, and Frank Quirarte, a member of Mavericks Rescue, said his analysis is still preliminary. It took 18 months of review before the Guinness World Records anointed the current biggest wave ever surfed, Sebastian Steudtner’s 86-foot wave at Nazaré, Portugal.
A Santa Cruz surfer rode potential world-record 108-foot-tall Mavericks wave
Slebir, a 23-year-old Santa Cruz local, caught a towering wave at the Mavericks surf spot near Half Moon Bay that was recently estimated by Mavericks Rescue Team to be 108 feet tall, which would make it easily the world’s largest wave ever surfed. The current world record is 86 feet.
Slebir told SFGATE Monday that he’s not dwelling on the wave’s exact height.
“Regardless of the number, it really doesn’t matter how big the wave was to me,” Slebir said. “It was really the biggest wave of my life and that’s all I really care about at the moment.”
Photos and videos of Slebir expertly navigating the barreling wave are already exploding on social media. An Instagram photo of Slebir bombing down the wave’s face was enough for many respectable surfers to decide it was a world record, with pro surfer Kai Lenny commenting, “100 foot wave,” and pro surfer Mason Barnes commenting, “That is the world record.”
The wave is already a contender for this year’s Big Wave Challenge, according to Bill Sharp, the contest’s organizer and an authority on big wave surfing. Sharp told SFGATE that while he thought Quirarte’s 108-foot estimation was “generous,” he added that the wave is “absolutely in the world record territory.”
“Alo’s wave is remarkable. It’s one of the biggest waves that’s ever been seen and captured on photos and videos and they kind of speak for themselves,” Sharp told SFGATE on Monday. “It’s going to require more analysis, but I think 100% in the discussion for the biggest wave ridden.”
Slebir’s wave is not only incredible for its size, but also for its perfect barreling shape and how Slebir rode the entire wave face. Slebir expertly carved a graceful line from the top of the wave to the bottom and then turned into a colossal barrel before safely exiting out the beastly wave’s shoulder. To do that on an 8-foot-wave requires incredible skill. To do it on a wave as large as Slebir’s is likely unheard of.
Sharp called the wave an “extraordinary cartoonish barrel.”
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“Back in my day in school, I never would have thought to draw a wave that big. That’s beyond any cartoon I would have thought as a youngster,” Sharp said.
Slebir first surfed Mavericks when he was just 14 and has been a fixture at the surf break for the past few years with his surfing partner Luca Padua, who is from Half Moon Bay. Both surfers paddle into many waves at Mavericks, but Monday’s incredibly powerful surf required Jet Skis for surfers to gain enough speed to ride the towering waves. Slebir said the pair worked for seven hours without taking a break during the historic swell. Slebir gave Padua 99% of the credit for the wave because his tow partner placed him perfectly into it.
Both surfers have garnered growing recognition for their exploits at Mavericks, with Slebir winning “Performer of the Year” at the surf break twice and Padua training with big wave surfing icon Laird Hamilton, though neither surfer has a major financial sponsor. Slebir said he still works construction in the summers so he can take time off to hit every swell at Mavericks he can.
Last Monday’s historic waves were certainly worth his time.
“I’ve never seen waves of that size in my lifetime,” Slebir said. “That’s not saying a whole lot because I’m only 23 years old. The old timers always say, ‘You’ll see another one,’ but that was our Mount Everest for Mavericks. You never know, it could happen next week or not again for another 30 years.”