Biggest wave ever surfed

I know we are supposed to go skiing during the winter in Norway but it's also the time of year when you get the best waves. Last weekend I headed North with a group of students to see if we could catch any of them. Passing close to the coast of Norway is a warm flow of water called the gulf stream, so it's not as cold as you might think but also not as warm as you might hope. We had 2 good days then on the 28th it got big so we stayed dry in the cabin. The big waves were caused by a huge low pressure system West of the UK, the swell hitting Norway was big but British Isles prevented us getting the same size waves that were hitting Portugal which is were Garrett McNamara was surfing some of the biggest waves ever ridden. Reported in the Guardian as 100ft but modestly denied by McNamara himself. Surfers measure wave height from the trough to the top of the crest which is twice the amplitude. Such big waves as this form when massive swells break in deep water. As anyone who has done the resonance in a bucket experiment will know, the wave velocity increases with increasing depth, this means that those deep water waves are travelling pretty fast. Now, to catch a wave you need to paddle as fast as the wave is moving forward, in shallow water it possible to do this by using your arms but deep water waves are just too fast, for that reason big wave surfers are towed into the wave with a jet ski. I'm not sure which looks worse, driving the jet ski or riding the wave. Thanks for the photo Jonah, it's not only instagram that steals your photos.