J Bay

Been watching for 20mins. It's 2 foot with 3 foot sets. Swell not showing yet.

Probably not far off Mick, should be kicking in within an hour or two.

Geez Craig, do you guys have minute divisions/intervals on your models?

Haha, no, just had a quick scan of the charts and seeing the swell front hitting at around 4pm our time and 8am their time. 

Nice lines pushing in now!

I'm guessing on standby. A lot of the pros have just paddled out. They probably have inside word. Starting to pulse now. First decent set just swung through

Yep..... Just call it.... A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush.....

Craig / Ben
You guys collecting internet data on this comp?

Yep. Doing it for all comps - WT, BWWT.

Just called it on Standby until 8:45am their time and literally just after the call one of the best sets of the morning comes through!!! LOL!!!

MF, what size was the first decent set you saw?

Don, only seen one 4 foot set rest 3 footers. Checking Magnas it's still only 3 foot and that's past boneyards at top of the reef. Praying they run all 12 heats that means 12 pros possibly leaving the lineup!

Looking like some 4 footers coming through now......

It's got some serious morning sickness wobble/sectiony to it? What's causing that? Almost looks like rips through the line up? No offshores overnight to clean it up?

Not a "typical" sw swell..... Has a touch of ssw in it.... Swell source was an unusual position.....

Yeah that would explain the sectiony swell for sure.....just not the ribs up the face. Occy reckoned the winds were onshore early but dropping off now.

Direction wouldn't be causing the weird wobbles/lumps, it's a strong groundswell and not a close-range S/SW swell which would come in quite random.

I'd say it'd be the overnight winds, or a mix of a smaller background SW groundswell under the larger S/SW groundswell.

And looking at this shot, there are definitely a mix of swells in the water, look at the close-range swell hidden under the more defined groundswell (small lump between and just behind the two main peaks).

Well, it looks like Nationals in a ene swell...... Straight on, sectiony, bit of wobble caused by water trying to escape from previous sets...... Not a clean strong sweep taking excess water down the point due to front on swell.....

More photogs here than people . Lucky to be 120 people watching. Wind is NNW. Ben the drone is ready. Apparently it's filthy expensive to run live, do you know why?

It looks like the waves in the dream I had which saw me waking up to pyjamas sticky with white wee.

Mick..... U, me, the biltong maker and the baboon who breaks into your unit to steal fresh fruit all knew there would be waves today....... This "calling on the morning" is overly pedantic........ You call it on last night on the 6pm s.a tv news, and the crowds would come.....

Yeah but i just click on a forecasting site or ask Craig! Suns out apparently NW wind dies now and it will get cleaner. I'm Biltonged out. Now that I am here I wondering why I have never been before. Its the most crazy perfect setup ever.

No wind overnight, but a squall came through at 5am and it pissed down. Combine that with NW morning sickness but not as bad as the Friday where it was real ribby on the wave

mick-free wrote:

Yeah but i just click on a forecasting site or ask Craig! Suns out apparently NW wind dies now and it will get cleaner. I'm Biltonged out. Now that I am here I wondering why I have never been before. Its the most crazy perfect setup ever.

Not u mick...... I mean the asp...... If the asp call it on the night before, bigger crowds will turn up.... I mean, we are all pretty well spot on re' swell and wind when given 24 hours.... Cheers, man.

mick-free wrote:

Ben the drone is ready. Apparently it's filthy expensive to run live, do you know why?

Coupla reasons I can think of. Batteries would be one reason - depending on the type of drone, it may only get 15-20mins at a time, you need a lot of backup batteries to keep it in the air longer. Flying over water means you'd want the 'brains' in a water housing (which increases the weight, which reduces the fly time, which increases the amount of back up batteries required). In order to get an HD signal back for broadcast they'd need a decent microwave transmitter too which is not cheap either (possibly more than the drone!). Plus the camera itself, and a couple of operators to keep the show on the road. Might be other reasons I can't think of but the research I did a while ago certainly put live drone footage into the 'wish list'.

Sheepdog wrote:

This "calling on the morning" is overly pedantic........ You call it on last night on the 6pm s.a tv news, and the crowds would come.....

Agree completely. I have no idea why they never make these kinds of announcements in advance.. Even with the available information.

Kelly out of the comp and, I'm prepared to say, out of the world title race.

The Prophets of July have spoken.

And the commentators were total wankers in that heat too as in constantly saying the heat was lost due to Kelly's mistakes.

Bollocks! Kelly could have ridden those waves to the end and Wilko still would have won that heat. Wilko was on fire on his backhand.

Well, just watched Wilko do over Slater..... Good work.... That'll do me..... Time for a sesh of xbox live call of duty ghosts lol...... Good evening, wave watchers ;)

zenagain wrote:

And the commentators were total wankers in that heat too as in constantly saying the heat was lost due to Kelly's mistakes. Bollocks! Kelly could have ridden those waves to the end and Wilko still would have won that heat. Wilko was on fire on his backhand.

Agree 100%

Sure Kelly made mistakes, but c'mon, look at the scoreboard. Wilko went berko.

Big cheers from beach for Wilko. Apparently Kelly never shouts the bar unlike Jordy who put 10k on it for the locals.

Ben the operator says something about the transmitter in HD being super expensive

Commentator's were shocking in the Wilko heat. Have been sub-par all day though. Kelly telling it exactly as it was in his interview. Look forward to him getting in the booth if he does. By far the most informative of all the commentators.

Slightly off topic: On the screen graphics showing the boards the surfers are riding it states the model name. Surely these guys aren't riding models? And if they are, what's all this "I've been working with my shaper" bizness?

You're not working with your shaper if you're riding a model. You're ordering a board off the rack.

Anyway, back to John John (who's riding 'The Flash' by Pyzel).

I'm putting my order in for a quiver of Mirandas and a standard, off the rack Giselle.

Healthy behaviour Zen. Riding different models is good for your surfing.

Martin Potter: A Tragedy.

Progressive as a youth, Potter gradually becomes more conservative with age railing against spontaneity and excitement. In Potter, surfing's creed of freedom gets perversely turned on it's head, he increasingly craves security and the shallow affirmation of other people. By the end of the film he is totally in servitude to them.

The plot is predictable, boring, and safe.

The Antagonistic role in Potter is filled by Derek Hynd whose quote that " Potter, Occy,Kong, these guys will never be world champions " drives the young South African to the tragic character self reassessment that brings him competitive success whilst simultaneously robbing him of the animalistic fervour that proved so enchanting to his fan base.
Ironically, After psychologically neutering one of the great raw talents of all time by confining his mental focus to the limited realm of competition, Hynd then went on to champion the rise of the paid Freesurfer that existed to exclusively live outside of convention.

Jordy choked. Do you think he got nervous with the loud crowd cheering him on?
Sucks we don't get to see him for the rest of the event.

.

Forecast (windguru) here is for Friday Sat 4-5m swells (low period) with strong offshores. Typically they overcall it - anyone for prediction on sizes?

Strange old day of surfing yesterday. I watched it up to the end of Round 3 so saw all the big names fall: Julian, Slater, Jordy, John John, Michel. All except Slater fell to surfers who failed to dominate, meaning no-one in the heat took control. Check the scores, winning heat totals of 13.30, 13.40, and Alejo beat Michel with just 11.50 points! At consistent 3'-5' J'Bay, no less. Something weird was going on, a collective sense of nerves and lack of confidence?

Mick, got any on-the-ground reports?

Matt Warshaw has got a great interview with Shaun about J'Bay on his site. The conversation veers around from the two types of surfer's on tour (reactors and analysers, apparently) and the person who had the greatest influence on Slater's board design (not Al Merrick but Mike Stewart!).

Check it here: http://encyclopediaofsurfing.com/eos-blog/shaun-tomson-on-j-bay-it-just-overwhelms-people/

Mick, you been in the water? Hows the wave for an average punter? What's the local vibe like and have you checked out any other waves in the area? Cost of living too, how does that compare? Be interested to hear a bit more detail about life in J-bay, allbeit with the circus in town.

Cool interview Stu and great little vid at the end.

Stu, I think the big names struggled to read the waves to their full potential yesterday. It was a very weird swell and a lot of the top guys just failed to pick the right waves IMO, or when they did they were trying too critical manouevres in the wrong part of the wave. Watch Parko and Fanning surf it.....they hardly ever got their board back past vertical....as Potts said....most of their manouevres were more horizontal down the line manouevres. And the goofies that scored really highly picked the waves that slowed down, enabling them to do multiple (repetive sometimes....aka Wilko) backhand attacks.

One would have thought if anyone was going to read the conditions the best it would have been Jordy. I don't know what happened to him in his heat.....very uncharacteristic of him at that place that's for sure.

Slaters board was just wrong for him and that wave. That was probably the worst board choice and surfing I've seen him do in a long time.

'Cool interview Stu and great little vid at the end.'

Yeh, here's a telling quote.

'And Jordy. Out of all those guys, I’d say he has the biggest power surge. He’s just a bigger guy; he’s got that much more leverage. '

It was strange Stu.

Curiously downbeat, like there was a death in the family.

Maybe there was, after Slater's implosion. Maybe that was a snapshot of the new reality of the Post-Slater epoch.

And no-one could step up and claim the vacant alpha male spot. It was a day defined by that void.

Might be onto something Steve. Yesterday should've been Jordy's day: reigning champ; local boy; coming off a Round 1 tear. Instead it looked like someone slipped him a roofie in the change room, he was out of synch, slow, and even his body language walking to the shoreline appeared subdued. Just not on point and exuding confidence the way a walk up champion - i.e Kelly - does.

Who is going to step up and fill the Slater void?

Julian?
Jordy?
JJF?
Medina?

They all look under-qualified in some fashion or other.

Slater has entered his "Horan" era, of going too extreme with board design..... His choice......
Mickf, as far as friday is concerned, it looks ugly to me......... Local chunk mixed with growing longer period swell, rain, squalls...... If there is still some residual 3 to 4 foot surf today, get a few heats dusted...... That longer period swell cleaning up on the weekend from the low at roughly 65s 10e at thurs aest looks far more inviting....

Sheepdog, he rode the most bog standard thruster imaginable yesterday.

A board anyone anywhere on the planet could go into a surfshop and buy.