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“The big ugly” winner of the extreme sports category at the LA drone film festival

“The Big Ugly” is the Winner of the “News & Documentary” Award on the Los Angeles Drone Film Festival 2017 edition.

In February this dramatic drone video footage of a massive wave at Nazaré, Portugal was captured by Daniel Neves and Pedro Miranda of Maquina Voadora and has been viewed more than 20 million times, making it the most famous footage of big wave surfing atNazaré.

Daring rescue from the big ugly waves at Nazaré

The video clip shows Brazilian professional surfer Pedro “Scooby” Vianna racing down the face of a massive 70-foot high wave, seemingly ready to swallow both the surfer and the drone, at an estimated 45 mph, trying to outrun it. Eventually, the avalanche of whitewater catches up with him and swallows him whole.

Scooby’s friend and fellow Brazilian, Lucas “Chumbo” Chianca came to the rescue on his jetski. Chumbo was able to save his friend right before the next big wave came crashing down but in their effort to outrun it on the jet ski they lose control and are thrown into the saltwater washing machine yet again.

Everaldo “Pato” Teixeira, another big wave surfer from Brazil comes in on a second jet ski and is able to rescue both fellow countrymen from the waves near the rocky shore of Nazaré. Luckily everybody escapes unharmed but the dramatic drone video footage shows how things can turn ugly in a matter of seconds at the big wave mecca, Nazaré.

This is not the first time we have featured drone footage from Nazaré.

Drone video

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Avatar for Haye Kesteloo Haye Kesteloo

Haye Kesteloo is the Editor in Chief and Main Writer at DroneDJ, where he covers all drone related news and writes product reviews. He also contributes to the other sites in the 9to5Mac group such as; 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, 9to5Toys and Electrek. Haye can be reached at haye@dronedj.com or @hayekesteloo