Maya Gabeira Talks Girl Power

Record-setting Brazilian big wave surfer and Tag Heuer ambassador, Maya Gabeira talks girl power, coming back from a near-death experience, and the latest Aquaracer launch

- Ian Lee

What do you love most about surfing, and how did you get started?

I started surfing a bit late – I must have been 13 or 14 years old. I started at my local beach called Ipanema, in Rio de Janeiro. Nobody in my family surfed, they are intellectuals – but my boyfriend at the time and my friends used to surf. So, I started going to the beach with them and I could not just stand or sit there and get a tan – it was too boring. I realised how much fun they had and how addicted they were to the sport called surfing. I got interested and realised that the boys were not going to take any of their time to teach me. I had to quickly find a surf school in my neighborhood and that’s where I started. Months later, I transferred from surfing in the surf school to being able to join my boyfriend and all of our friends. That was when it became a lot of fun! I then left Rio when I was 17 to go to Hawaii to learn better English and of course, to surf.

You’ve set records for the largest wave surfed. What drives you and what’s your training routine like?

I would love to say that titles do not mean that much, but at the end of the day, they do. In big wave surfing, it is funny because we do not have a title that is immediately recognised as the best one in the field. From a young age, I dreamt of breaking a world record because I just thought that this was the universal stamp of excellence. Although it did not exist for women at the time, I dreamt of it. When I established the first one, it was already a dream come true and it meant a lot to me.