Will Skudin represents Long Beach at Nazaré

Will Skudin can routinely be found on his surfboard in the waves off Long Beach, waiting for one more good ride.

But on Jan. 22, the 37-year-old Skudin, whose family name is synonymous with surfing in Long Beach, headed to Nazaré, Portugal once again to compete in an annual challenge that attracts some of the world’s top surfers for a single day of monster rides.

Skudin was one of 18 competitors, and the only one from the U.S.

“I am excited and grateful to be back competing at the World Surf League Nazaré Challenge with my teammate Andrew Cotton,” Skudin said before the event. “It is truly an honor to be invited into this event again. I am praying the waves and conditions lineup for a good and safe event.” 

Skudin and his teammate Andrew Cotton previously competed in 2023 and finished third. They also competed back in 2021, finishing seventh overall. They finished in sixth this year.

Each of the surfers team up with a partner and take turns on the waves. Teammates each surf twice, for 50 minutes at a time, and are permitted to switch whenever they wanted to save energy. The judges score each surfer’s top two waves, and each pair’s scores are added for an overall score.

Nazaré has seen 50-foot waves frequently, but Skudin has said he has seen waves as big as 70 to 100 feet over the course of his career. He has been surfing competitively for most of his life, mostly in “paddle-in” events, in which contestants paddle themselves out to the waves. Nazaré is a tow-in event, in which the two teammates alternate towing each other out with a personal watercraft and surfing.

The event was once paddle-in, but changed to tow-in in the winter of 2018 to make the surfers’ trips out to the waves safer and easier, since there’s nothing safe about paddling out to waves as big as Nazaré’s, according to Skudin.

His partner, Cotton, who is from North Devon, England, was competing in his fourth Nazaré event, and this was the third time the two had teamed up. The two met at a big-wave event in Ireland in 2012, and decided then that they would someday team-up.

Skudin took to Instagram after the event, citing mechanical jet issues and other hurdles he and Cotton overcame during the competition.

“From a defeated soul and a heavy heart, I just want to thank everyone for all the love and support,” he posted. “ Truly, truly grateful for the community that surrounds me.”