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After changing out of his wetsuit in Nazaré, Portugal, Pete “Luigi” Shaw walked back down the beach to grab the surfboard he’d left less than 50 feet from his car. It was gone.
This wasn’t a board someone could casually pick up and run away with. It was an 11’6”, bright pink gun weighing roughly 50 pounds. Shaw thought it was un-stealable.
The WSL Nazaré Big Wave Challenge had just wrapped up, and the town was packed with tourists. Shaw, a 30-year-old big-wave surfer from New York, had paddled out after the contest but decided the conditions were too messy. He came back in through the thumping shorebreak at Praia da Vila, snagged a heavy wave before dark, and called it a day.
When he returned to the beach, the board had vanished.
“The board is literally 50 pounds,” Shaw told me. “It’s so heavy. It takes three people to carry it. So I was like, ‘Who would even try to steal this thing?’ Someone must have it, a surfer in town must have taken it.”
The board was shaped by Dylan Longbottom for Chilean charger Rafael Tapia specifically for riding massive waves at Nazaré. Shaw had bought it from Tapia to chase a Nazaré monster of his own. He estimated its value at around $2,000. After competing in the Punta Galea Challenge in Spain, he’d traveled to Portugal to keep his big-wave season rolling.
As darkness enveloped the beach, Shaw realized there was little he could do. Dejected, he wandered into the post-event festivities, had a beer, and decided to deal with the situation in the morning.
“I had a panic attack,” he said. “I was super depressed. I didn’t even know how I could replace a board like that. The fins alone are $200. It was really starting to sink in that it might be gone.”
Instead of surfing the next morning, Shaw skated around town, popping into shops to ask if anyone had seen the board. He went to the police station near the beach and asked about security cameras. There weren’t any on the outside of the building. He posted on Instagram, hoping one of his 14,000 followers might spot the unmistakable board – now the internet was invested in the mystery, too.
With no leads, Shaw tried a second police station on the other side of town.
“I was like, ‘Hey, I lost a surfboard, a big-wave, very big surfboard,’” said Shaw. “I showed them a picture, and they just started laughing.”
Then the officers picked up the phone. They told Shaw to hop in their car.
They drove him back to the exact spot where the board had disappeared. Across the street, tucked into a restaurant’s basement storage area, was the vivid pink gun lying around plates and silverware.
The restaurant owners had already called in, saying they picked up the board. There was a bit of a language barrier, but Shaw gathered that the restaurant staff had seen the board sitting alone on the beach and worried it would get stolen. So they hauled the massive gun inside and reported it to the police.
“It just goes to show there are really good people in Nazaré,” Shaw said. “It’s a really nice village.”
With daylight still to spare, Shaw secured the board and paddled back out for a session.
“I’m trying to catch a giant wave on that board,” Shaw concluded. “That is my goal for the season. I’m so relieved, so stoked to have the board back so I can actually go for it.”
