Earlier this year, an international group of women big wave surfers came together to form the Women’s Big Wave Collective, an international network created to help surfers and big wave surfing thrive. Finisterre Ambassador and big wave surfer, Katie McConnell, gives us the inside line...
We Want To Surf!
10.11.26
4 min read
Written by Katie McConnell
Photography Fred Pompermayer
Special thanks to the
Women's Big Wave Collective
It has been several years since a big wave world champion was crowned and there’s never truly been a Big Wave World Tour for women. It wasn’t until the final three years of the Big Wave World Tour, under the World Surf League, that twelve women were included in the championship event at Pe‘ahi in Hawai’i, who competed in two six surfer semifinals and a final. Paige Alms won the first two events, and Keala Kennelly won in 2018, the year the World Surf League introduced equal prize money across its competitions.
As the tour dissolved, Pe’ahi became a standalone event, with Paige Alms winning one last time before the event went extinct. Those events established an important benchmark, with women demonstrating that there was talent enough for a full competitive format at one of the most demanding big-wave venues on earth, and they proved that their performance deserved equal compensation.
When the tour dissolved, some events continued, even adapting to the restrictions of the pandemic through season-long digital formats. Competitions like Red Bull Magnitude Women’s Big Wave Competition that ran across Hawaiian winters, from 2021–2024, created an incubator for progression and drew more women to riding big waves, and by its final season it received so many applications that qualified surfers were being turned away.
There are more talented women than ever paddling huge waves around the globe but still many remain unknown outside their home regions. This visibility gap has a significant impact on women surfers, as invitations to big wave competitions often rely on organisers’ awareness and community-sourced recommendations. Women’s big wave surfing has historically received poor media coverage, resulting in a feedback loop in which fewer opportunities mean less visibility, and lack of visibility is then used to justify fewer opportunities.
A New Championship Path
The new Big Wave Alliance is a chance to interrupt this pattern. Conceived by shaper and Big Wave World Tour founder Gary Linden, it links established and emerging big wave events into a decentralised championship structure.
Rather than stringing big wave venues into the world tour circuit, winners from participating regional events earn the opportunity to advance towards an ultimate World Championship event which rotates between different big wave venues.
This approach has opened new career pathways for underground local surfers, directed attention and investment towards their surf communities, and allowed regional events to retain autonomy over their own contests. Decentralization and local sovereignty have also strengthened the return of competitive big wave surfing, but in the Alliance’s 3-year history there have been inconsistencies, especially for women. Some events have no women’s division, while others have put women into mixed heats or offered only a single final, with prize money not always divided equally.
However, the 2026 CB Surf Big Wave Mormaii, at Praia Cardoso, Santa Catarina, Brazil, set a new bar for the Alliance, holding two women’s semifinals and a final with equal prize money. But no event has yet met the old benchmark of the World Championship at Pe’ahi.
The Women's Big Wave Collective
To address the unequal access to big wave competitions and the gap in women’s representation, and through an authentic love for big waves, the Women’s Big Wave Collective was formed in February 2026.
Their first action was to create a public Instagram account, profiling high-calibre big wave women, qualified and motivated to compete. The surfers were proven big wave paddlers who consistently surfed 20-foot faces or larger. Members can tow, but the Collective emphasises paddle experience because the Big Wave Alliance championship is paddle-focused and because paddling big waves requires a special skillset.
This home for big wave riding women makes it easy for contest organisers to enrol eligible female chargers into their events, shines a light on lesser-known surfers and encourages a more balanced media presence. But it is only a small part of the Women’s Big Wave Collective: there are nearly twice as many women on a private multilingual WhatsApp group, made up of experienced pioneers and up-and-coming talent. It provides a safe space to share ideas, experiences, concerns, and support and is essential for those not ready to be publicly profiled. Many women surfers are genuinely afraid of losing invitations, sponsorship opportunities and community support if they are seen to be undermining the status quo.
From Conversations To Consensus...
Early discussions on the WhatsApp group became the foundation of a collaborative multilingual Community Guidelines document for future competitive big-wave events, which was circulated among women and men connected to Big Wave Alliance for collaboration. The accepted minimum standard for future Big Wave Alliance events is to invite at least six women, including one local, for a women’s final heat with equal prize money. This was successfully done at the 2024 and 2026 Thriller at Killers in Mexico, and with a minimum of six named alternates, organisers are laying the groundwork for the return of twelve-woman tournaments of two semis and one final.
Positive Change
In May 2026, after reviewing the Community Guidelines document and receiving feedback from surfers, the Pico Alto Pro Big Wave Invitational announced that it would hold a dedicated women’s division for the first time in its long history. The invite list includes six women alongside seven alternates, with Peruvian surfer Fabiana Cancino representing the host country for the first time. This is far fewer than the 36 male invitees and 36 alternates named across the national qualifier and international main event, and it is still unclear whether women will receive equal prize money.
Fairness For All
There is much to celebrate in the progress made for women in big wave surfing, but it did not begin with the Women’s Big Wave Collective. Before us there were years of work and sacrifice by women, like Bianca Valenti, who challenged exclusion, campaigned for equal prize money, and demanded legitimate access to consequential waves and competitions.
While there is still resistance to opportunities for women in big wave contests, the Collective has been successful at placing the shared love of riding big waves at the forefront, while operating from a place of goodwill and a belief that fairness benefits all big wave surfers. Issues like transparent prize purses, reliable payment, clear safety systems, and accountable decision-making benefit us all and build trust between athletes, organisers, sponsors and host communities.
Every small win creates a ripple effect, and the Women’s Big Wave Collective is committed to growing the reach and effectiveness of those ripples. The dream is of in-house sponsorships, athlete salaries, travel, and storytelling, and if it works, there’s no reason why the Women’s Big Wave Collective shouldn’t become a Collective for all.
Fairness is not an obstacle to the growth of big wave surfing. It is part of the infrastructure required for growth. And what better time to invest in equity than from the start?
Share
