Hawaiian's wave deemed a world record

The Guinness Book of World records has recognised a wave surfed by a Hawaiian off the coast of Portugal last year as the largest ever caught.

Big-wave surfer Garrett McNamara, from Haleiwa on Oahu's North Shore, was towed into the record-breaking wave at Priaia do Norte off Nazaré last November by a jet ski.

The wave has officially been measured at 23.8 m (78ft), breaking the previous record by about 50cm.

McNamara (44) said he originally didn't want to go out into the ocean that day after previously wiping out several times on even bigger waves in the same spot, which breaks above an undersea canyon.

"I was really beat-up that morning," he said. "This day, I did not want to get out of bed."

Luckily, he changed his mind and ventured out with a group of other surfers, including Al Mennie from Portrush, Co Antrim and his tow-partner Andrew Cotton from Devon.

"Everything came together," McNamara said. "Everything felt right."

Video of the run shows McNamara tearing down a massive wall of water after letting go of the tow rope from the jet ski. He briefly disappears into the tube about 10 seconds into the run, then speeds up and remerges as the wave peters out.

"I knew it was big, but I didn't know how big," he said.

The official record comes after McNamara was awarded $15,000 for the ride in the Biggest Wave category at the Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards in California last week.

Irish surfer Ollie O’Flaherty was nominated in the same category  for a huge wave he was towed into at Mullaghmore, Co Sligo on March 8th. Cotton was also nominated for a wave he caught at Mullaghmore on the same day.

Judges for the awards, considered the official arbiters of big-wave surfing, pored over footage and high-resolution still images from several angles to calculate a more accurate estimate, event director Bill Sharp said. They used McNamara's height in a crouch and the length of his shin bone to help compare it to the wave's top and bottom.

McNamara, who began surfing at age 11 and went pro at 17, said the achievement became more important to him when he realised it could help him urge more people to follow their passions. "The world would be a much better place if everyone was doing what they wanted to do," he said.

US surfer Mike 'Snips' Parsons won the Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards in 2008 for catching what was previously thought to be the largest wave ever ridden – a huge beast at the Cortes Bank, a big wave spot some 160km off the coast of southern California.

Additional reporting: AP