Makua Rothman

Makuakai Rothman, known as Makua, is an American big wave surfer and musician born on 17 June 1984 on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii. He attended Kahuku High School and learned to surf the island's largest breaks, including Pipeline and Sunset Beach, as a boy. At eighteen he won the 2003 Billabong XXL award for riding a 66 foot wave at Jaws, and he was crowned the 2015 Big Wave World Champion on the World Surf League's first sanctioned Big Wave World Tour. On 16 January 2021 he rode a wave at Jaws on Maui that the Honolulu Star-Advertiser called the biggest ever ridden in Hawaii, estimated at about 100 feet. Alongside surfing he records reggae-influenced music, releasing the EP Makanale Road and the album Sound Wave, and his younger brother Koa Rothman is also a professional big wave surfer.