Giant waves, whipped up by Storm Helena, battered Nazaré in Portugal on Friday but the conditions were so treacherous that no surfers dared take on the famously extreme break. <br /><br />Locals said this was the biggest day of the season and maybe the biggest in several years with waves estimated to have been more than 80-feet. <br /><br />Despite the fact that no-one was surfing, crowds gathered by the famous lighthouse to watch the raw power of nature. <br /><br />Pedro Miranda, the filmmaker who captured this footage said: "If the wind was off-shore or a bit lighter this could’ve been easily the day for a new record-breaking wave, the big ones were true monsters."<br /><br />Praia do Norte beach, near the fishing village of Nazaré, became famous worldwide for huge waves in 2011 when Hawaiian surfer Garrett McNamara set a world record for the largest wave ever surfed at 78-feet. In 2017 that record was broken by Brazilian surfer Rodrigo Koxa, who successfully rode a wave measuring 80-feet.
