Laura Enever is 32, 168 centimetres tall and in her own words, “is scared of the RTA”. She walks her dog, puffs out Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk on her trumpet, and feels for her neighbours when she does.
Lorita – her newly named alter ego – is the one who takes on the world’s biggest and heaviest waves, emerging with world records, wipeouts and incredible tales in the process.
“From the very first time I went to Jaws [the legendary surf spot off Maui in Hawaii] and put myself in this death-defying wave situation, this person came out of me that I just didn’t know existed,” Enever says with a laugh.
“I’ve tried to find her in competition – she’ll come out rarely. But when I surf in these waves, it’s just the most focused, determined, empowered version of myself that just comes out.
“She doesn’t have a name, but she should, shouldn’t she? I think everyone thinks it’s just ‘crazy Laura’. Maybe we call her Lorita? That’s Lorita out there. She loves it. I love it.”
‘Lorita’ might be cooked up mid-interview on a squally Thursday afternoon, huddling away from a cranky southerly whipping across her native northern beaches, but Enever has become one of big-wave surfing’s most recognisable names, and one of its smallest exponents, after last year’s Guinness World Record for the largest wave ever paddled into by a woman.
Laura Enever: one of the biggest names, and smallest humans, in big-wave surfing.Credit: James Brickwood
As the Herald established at the time, the 13.3-metre – or 43.6-foot – monster off the north shore of Oahu, was the equivalent of a four-storey building, or eight 1.68-metre-tall Laura Enevers standing on top of each other.
Last week she doubled down with big-wave surfer of the year honours, bestowed by the iconic Surfer magazine for a series of eye-watering rides from Tasmania to Tahiti, Hawaii to Fiji.
Enever’s own YouTube clips of one terrifying day at the infamous Shipstern Bluff break – a dangerously isolated, heaving, spitting beast of a big wave, south of Hobart – spell out the stakes better than we ever could.
“F—, my mum is going to hate that wave so much,” Enever prattles with eyes like saucers after being skimmed across the broiling Tasmanian ocean by a four-metre brute in April.
Laura Enever in the eye of a monster at Shipstern Bluff, Tasmania.Credit: Nick Green
“One of the worst wipeouts of my life,” she says with a grin six months later. “But Lorita’s in charge. There’s always fear there, but when I get in the line-up, that’s where I am – I’m in the present and relying on my intuition.
“All the fear happens in the week leading up to a swell. You’re packing the boards and you think about all the worst things that can happen.
“Now I’ve realised that they’re just thoughts. That’s all it is.”
And so Enever puts the head noise on mute.
“Can’t get worse than that, aye?” she shouts back to the camera before paddling away from the safety of the Shipstern channel, grabbing the tow-in rope and whipping straight into her next wave.
It’s another pumping, steepling mass of water that sends her into freefall. As she negotiates the wave’s infamous step, straightens and rides a wave that isn’t believed until it’s seen, again it’s Enever’s immediate, visceral reaction that says it all.
“What the f— was I just surfing? I think this is the entry to hell right here. I just saw that thing and was just like, what the f— do I even do with this? It was a monster.”
Mum Sarah might still be thinking the same thing. But she came to terms a while ago with her youngest child throwing herself in front of life-threatening mountains of water, telling Laura, “You’re doing what you’re meant to be doing. Just trust your intuition.”
Enever’s own instincts have her eyeing a unique future – school drop-offs one day, riding giants the next.
She married her long-term partner, Jake, in September and while she doesn’t have anything concrete, raising a family is planned somewhere down the line.
Yet after seven years on the World Championship Tour she’s found a home in big-wave surfing and is hitting her peak.
Enever’s world-record ride off the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii.Credit: WSL
“It’s so wild. I always looked at my career and thought that having kids would just be something that happened at the end of it,” she says.
“But for the first time in my life I feel like it could be something that happens together, alongside my surfing. That excites me. I want to give everything to this big-wave season and I’m not planning anything after that – but I do think I could do both.
“And I’m so inspired by so many female athlete mums who have been able to come back and do incredible things. They’ve shown that you can be a mum, be powerful and do your sport just as well as you did before having kids.
“The sport is dangerous and I’ve spoken to big-wave surfers who do have kids. And you’re always as safe as you can be – you have your safety teams, your training, breath-holds underwater – but bad things can happen. And that would play a role for sure in whether I wanted to slow down.
“But I’d also want to tell my kid, ‘go for it’.”
My mum rides giants? Enever can see herself combining big waves and motherhood.Credit: James Brickwood
As a kid herself, with brother Chris forever urging her into bigger and bolder peaks, Enever “felt the spark” whenever the swell cranked up.
But when she made a full-time move from the professional WSL circuit to chasing the world’s biggest waves, doubts emerged inside and out.
“When I first started big-wave surfing I definitely had impostor syndrome,” she says.
“I don’t look like someone who should be riding the world’s biggest waves. People did look at me and say, ‘You’re not strong enough. You need to get bigger, your legs need to get bigger.’
“But catching the biggest wave isn’t about being the biggest person; it’s about positioning and knowledge. It’s this huge ocean you’re in and you’re trying to catch one wave that’s been generated by a storm thousands of miles away, and you’re positioning yourself in a line-up, trying to match its speed while paddling into it. That’s all knowledge, intuition and experience.
“The people that have believed in me, they’ve played a vital role in my own belief, that I can get out there and belong in this world. And I just thought, ‘Stuff it, I’m not telling myself I’m not strong enough’.”
Laura Enever flies out of a Teahupo’o barrel in Tahiti.Credit: Nick Green
And so, fresh from claiming big-wave surfer of the year in Nazare, Portugal, Enever is headed back to Hawaii, the scene of her world-record ride two years ago.
She’s on the books for the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational, surfing’s most prestigious and exclusive event, which only runs in 40-foot waves at Waimea Bay and, as such, has only been held 10 times since 1984.
Enever’s training of breath work, pool sessions, carbon dioxide tolerance training, weights, cardio and, of course, surfing, has ramped up anticipating the northern winter swells.
And, she only half-jokes, her noisy hobby might need to be revisited as well.
“I learnt the trumpet during the pandemic and I’m going to get back into it,” she says.
“Mostly it’s just me playing random notes, but it genuinely helps my breathing ability. I had trumpet lessons one day and breath-hold training straight after, and my breath-hold was way longer. It expands the lungs and acts as a really good warm-up.
“So imagine me just before the Eddie, playing the trumpet, expanding my diaphragm and lungs, and then charging into an Eddie swell and an absolute career highlight. That would be just incredible.”
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