Day One: 2025 J-Bay Open

Just a paltry four heats run today in a sputtering Supers lineup as a new swell tried, then failed, to build for opening day.

I utilised the break in the tour following Brazil to get a little more understanding of the J-Bay swell window and was quite surprised to find similarities between it and my own home break - both in swell exposure and orientation.

A feature of both is the way initial cold fronts separate away from parent lows and deeper-bodied fetches. This leads to the phenomenon of “phantom” pulses where an initial cold front flush is confused with the main body of the swell. It shows with a few strong multiple wave sets, then dribbles away to single random waves, then stops dead. Bizarrely enough, it happened at my home break yesterday, then I got to watch it play out at J-Bay.

In practical terms that means a random distribution of single wave sets and if you have priority and positioning when they come, a heat win is pretty much baked in.

Single wave sets (WSL/Van Gysen)

We saw that play out from the opening ride of the day when Isabella Nichols calmly waited with pole positioning at the top of the point and rode the wave of the heat for a cooly scored 7.33. Izzy had also been busy during Brazil. After getting knocked in Round 2 she jumped straight on a plane and has spent the ensuing period getting the pulse and rhythm of J-Bay swells imbued into her muscle memory and neural networks.

Pointbreak surfing is cerebral - you have to know where to be and when to be there, build up a sufficient bank of knowledge about which waves will do what - but it also has to become deeply instinctual. Not in the sense that you were born to do it, but in the sense that all muscle movements and wave reads happen at a subconscious level. I don't think it can be coached. The best example of it today was Molly Picklum and she has ditched her coach this year.

Pickles (WSL/McGregor)

From the screen, all waves look equal, or close enough to it on a perfect point. In the water, it's their variety which stands out. Even here, on a North Coast point during yesterday's steeply directional south swell, there was so much variety in the way the incoming swells interacted with the bathymetry. Some approached deep, offering a little chip in if they felt the edge of the rockbreak, some went wider onto the sandbar. Some short walled, some long. Different pacing allowing for different turns. Same at J-Bay last night.

It made judges' decisions easy. If offered the luxury of binary choices for the panel. They either got it right, or they didn't.

Of the four heats the two Aussie top fivers, Molly Picklum and Izzy Nichols, were vastly superior to opponents.

Izzy (WSL/McGregor)

Pickles opened with a scrappy wave (admitting later in the presser it was not a good wave) but set the template for future rides. A strong opening carve bought all the way back around, a double arm layback variation turn, and a powerful closeout finish. When she bought that repertoire to the best wave of the heat she turned in the best number of the day for a 9.33.

Having seen the women's field compete it's very obvious Pickles has opened up a very meaningful gap to her competitors. Daylight second, then Nichols, then Gabby Bryan, who did not exhibit that smooth, subconscious flow. She was scrappy and twitchy and full of wasteful energy which made her surfing look disjointed and unappealing. She threw buckets though and judges paid her best wave to the tune of an 8.

Gabby (WSL/McGregor)

No-one else was anyone near the standard. Wildcards Sarah Baum and Francisca Veselko looked clueless.

Erin Brooks lacked wave selection nous, taking a two-turn closeout for a 5.5 (judges wisely did not pay the radical closeout turn) and suffering from a poor read on her backup for a sub-10 point heat total.

Tyler showed up in a leopard skin suit yet didn't live up to that animal totem.

Tyler (WSL/McGregor)

A wave of South Africans emigrated here, to the NSW North Coast, in the 70's including Gunter Rohn and the Cerffs, mostly establishing themselves as respected boardbuilders. One of their compadres, who shall remain nameless, ex-special forces and a super gnarly dude, had a simple mantra for surfing the point.

Once you had positioning established, according to X, when it was time to go “you have to strike like a Cobra, bru”. He'd coil his arm back and imitate the striking cobra repeatedly, usually an inch from your face.

Which is to say, if you are going to wear the animal disguise, you need to emulate its essential attributes. Tyler did not and offered up an insipid performance.

Caroline (WSL/McGregor)

What to think about Caity Simmers?

If we award world titles on will and desire and determination then Pickles gets it, no problem. She was open in her winning presser about wanting to head into Cloudbreak in pole position. She stated clearly how important these J-Bay heats were in attaining that goal.

Apart from a paddle battle with rival Caroline Marks, Caity looked like she wanted to be anywhere else but windy, inconsistent J-Bay.

It's prudent to give her the benefit of the doubt. She'll get another showing, likely in pumping conditions. But these inconsistent and frankly disinterested performances are starting to build up.

Pure talent has her well ensconced in the top five but it would be a hard sell to say Simmers has been in world title form this year.

After the four heats it was put on hold and, as reality set in that the main body of the swell was yet to arrive, called off for the day.

Almost certainly we have a pumping day (night) ahead to look forwards too.

// STEVE SHEARER

Corona Cero Open J-Bay Women’s Opening Round Results:
HEAT 1: Isabella Nichols (AUS) 14.00 DEF. Bettylou Sakura Johnson (HAW) 12.83, Luana Silva (BRA) 9.43
HEAT 2: Molly Picklum (AUS) 16.83 DEF. Erin Brooks (CAN) 9.27, Sarah Baum (RSA) 3.07
HEAT 3: Gabriela Bryan (HAW) 12.33 DEF. Tyler Wright (AUS) 7.50, Francisca Veselko (POR) 5.70
HEAT 4: Lakey Peterson (USA) 9.43 DEF. Caroline Marks (USA) 6.50, Caitlin Simmers (USA) 4.77