Big-Wave Surfers Kai Lenny and Maya Gabeira on Why They Actually Wear Dive Watches in the Water
“The cool thing about surfing is it’s all about timing,” Kai Lenny told press during a TAG Heuer event in Tuscany for the launch of its new and improved Aquaracer. “Everything’s about timing. When you’re on a wave, the wave is this fluid object, and it’s constantly changing. And you’re almost predicting the future, even if that future is only a couple of seconds ahead of your next move. When you’re traveling down a wave, you have to almost see things before they happen.”
Lenny and fellow big wave surfer, Maya Gabeira—two of the best big-wave surfers in the world—were on hand to promote TAG Heuer’s new timepieces, but as far as watch brand ambassadors go they are among the most authentic. Unlike other sports figures who mostly promote timepieces as a lifestyle correlation to their adrenaline pumping careers but rarely use them while competing, both Lenny and Gabeira say they feel their timepieces are essential on the open water. (In today’s world, a racecar driver is definitely not timing his laps with a chronograph while burning rubber on the track during a Formual 1 race, and SCUBA divers long ago abandoned mechanical watches, for instance.)
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When you are surfing 80-foot waves at Jaws in Maui or 100-foot waves at Nazaré in Portugal (the biggest waves in the world, equivalent to the height of a 10-story office building) timing can be a life or death calculation. Just ask Gabeira, who famously nearly died after a wipeout at Nazaré that plunged her underwater for 12 minutes. She says those 12 minutes actually felt incredibly slow as she contemplated her life during the time which she was in the process of losing consciousness and nearly drowning. “I thought a lot,” she says. “It went from thoughts and emotions to a very physical kind of bad. You start feeling all the physiology change. I’m a free diver as well, so I knew what my body would do if I was lacking oxygen. So, I started being very focused on my physical abilities and what I had to do and how much time I still had. And then after it just went black, to be honest.” She says she rarely thinks about the experience now but it took her about a decade to recover from the trauma.
Through their best and worst rides, both Lenny and Gabeira say their timepieces are constant companions. In fact, Lenny has gone through at least five Aquaracers in the deep blue. “It comes from just wear—you’re in big waves and everything breaks at one point, including yourself,” says Lenny. “And I use it as a tool. I’m always timing waves.” He says when he’s competing, especially, he will time things down to the second to make sure he’s catching the big waves, which come approximately every 30 minutes. “It comes down to when you paddle for the wave, how much time you have to allow yourself,” says Lenny. “It’s amazing how often I’m actually like dialing the watch to be like, okay, in two minutes from now, a set is coming and because of the ocean wavelengths, it’s so consistent. You can actually time the ocean and predict when it’s going to come in just off of your timepiece.”
One big bonus of the new TAG Heuer Aquaracer, according to Lenny, is that he feels the rubber strap is more secure than in previous models. Other updates to the timepiece include a more legible minute track and a more prominent hour hand featuring a shield shape, as well as a wavy new dial (which will, no doubt, draw comparisons to the Omega Seamaster, but the Aquaracer comes in at a cool $3,800 vs. $5,900 for the Seamaster, which may be a bit easier to swallow for those that are into hardcore surfing and prone to losing their timepieces like Lenny). The case has been reduced from 43 mm to 42 mm, in keeping with current trends towards smaller sizing. It is, of course, water resistant to 300 meters (or 984 feet) in keeping with the best dive watch standards.
While timepieces are truly practical tools for these big wave surfers, they’re also mementos. Lenny says his first Aquaracer he got in 2015 is his most treasured because he wore it during his first big wave competition at the infamous Jaws surf spot in his hometown of Maui. “That was the one watch that I consistently wore for the longest,” says Lenny. Against all odds, he still has it, and he says it’s a reminder of a time when he had to pass through a certain veil of fear. “But you know, it’s a good throwback to an awesome time in my life when I was much younger and got to cut my teeth in the big wave world,” he says.
For Gabeira, the most poignant reflection of time is her own accomplishments. Incredibly, she didn’t start surfing until the age of 13 (for comparison, Lenny has been surfing since the age of 4.) A boyfriend introduced her to the sport and she fell in love with it from the first ride. He broke up with her, but the ocean remained her faithful companion. “I went to Australia and then I came back and I was like, ‘Ok, I’m just going to keep improving until I’m so good, he never has a chance around me in the ocean again,” she says, reflecting on that time in her life. “He was the surfer and I was the beginner. I was like, ‘You watch it flip.'” She is now one of the best big wave surfers on the planet and in 2020, when she surfed a 73-foot wave in Nazaré, she set the record for the biggest wave ever surfed by a woman. How’s that for perseverance? It’s proof that it’s never too late to be your best and with serious dedication and an near obsessive investment of your time, you just might, like Gabeira, realize your wildest dreams.
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