page_title: Garrett McNamara
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Garrett McNamara / Career
caption_attribution_description: 7 November 2017; Pictured from left to right, Ger Gilroy, Managing Editor, OffTheBall.com, Tiago Pires, Professional Surfer, Red Bull, Garrett McNamara, Big Wave Surfer, Garret McNamara, Andrew Cotton, Big Wave Surfer, Red Bull, and Anastasia Ashley, Pro Surfer, on the SportsTrade Stage during the opening day of Web Summit 2017 at Altice Arena in Lisbon. Photo by Cody Glenn/Web Summit via Sportsfile
context_page_description: Garrett ‘GMAC’ McNamara is an American professional big wave surfer and extreme waterman known for breaking the world record for largest wave ever surfed at Nazaré, Portugal, surviving a monstrous wave at Jaws, and riding tsunami from calving glaciers in Alaska.
context_section_description: After training for a year, McNamara and tow-in partner Rodrigo Resende won the $70,000 purse at the Tow Surfing World Cup in Maui at Jaws in 2002.  Later that year, he posed for the cover of major surf magazines around the world after being photographed in a dramatic barrel shot off of the coast of Teahupo'o in Tahiti. In 2003 he rode one of his most well known waves. McNamara was once again at Jaws and caught a wave with a 20-foot (6.1 m) barrel where onlookers believed he had been crushed by the lip of the wave. The wave spit and, escaping death, he emerged to the surprise and amazement of everyone watching, including himself.
  The boundaries of big-wave surfing were pushed once again in the summer of 2007 by McNamara and partner Keali’i Mamala, seeking tsunami formed by 300-foot (91 m) calving glaciers in South-Central Alaska. A feature film was made documenting their experience.
  In January 2016, McNamara suffered a severe wipeout on a 50-foot wave at Mavericks in California that caused him to skip off the water three times before being swallowed by the monster-size wave. Rescuers on jet skis eventually pulled McNamara to safety, and he suffered a dislocated shoulder and a broken upper arm that required surgery. Video of McNamara's wipeout went viral, and local surfers have said it was one of the worst wipeouts caught on video.
caption: McNamara speaking at the Web Summit 2017, Lisbon, Portugal.
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