Jeff Rowley

Jeff Rowley is a professional big wave surfer from Torquay, Victoria, Australia, born on 6 April 1979. He grew up at Bells Beach, one of the best known surf locations in regional Victoria. He is best remembered for 4 January 2012, when he became the first Australian to paddle into a wave about fifteen metres high at Jaws, also called Peahi, in Hawaii, a break long regarded as the biggest and most dangerous in the world. He rode it on a three metre Channel Islands board, which he later said was not large enough, and the effort placed him fourth at the 2012 Billabong XXL Big Wave Awards. He was also a finalist at that year's Oakley Big Wave Awards run by Australian Surfing Life, having surfed the Bells Beach break known as Albatross. Rowley has surfed the 2021 Fifty Year Storm invitational at Bells Beach, the swell of the decade at Cloudbreak in Fiji and the shallow break at Teahupo'o in Tahiti. In 2012 Tourism Australia named him a friend of Australia, and he holds an MBA from Deakin University and works as a motivational speaker.