Red Bull Cape Fear returns to Shippies
This year Red Bull Cape Fear will return to Shipsterns Bluff.
First run at Cape Solander in 2014 and then followed up in 2016 with hardly-ridable twelve-foot slabs at the Cape, the event then moved south to Shippies in 2019. Nathan Florence won that instalment, which was run in waves barely worth of the name Cape Fear.
With an extended waiting period, organisers will be hoping for a southern version of the 2016 contest.
Because of COVID, the field is exclusively Australian, with 11 of the 24 invitees from Tasmania. Other surfers include perennial crowd favourites Jughead Allport and Laurie Towner, plus 2016 winner Russ Bierke, while ex-CT surfers Mick Fanning and Laura Enever are also in the draw.
Enever joins three other women - Lizzie Stokely from Tas, and Felicity Palmateer and Laura Macaulay, both from WA - to surf the event.
There are 24 invited surfers yet the format is five heats of four surfers (i.e 20 surfers). Whether the women run separately or organisers are expecting four surfers not to make it is unclear.
The contest window opens on March 15th with competitors receiving a 48 hour notice from when the contest gets the green light.
The full list of competitors are as follows:
- Mick Fanning (QLD)
- Russell Bierke (NSW)
- Ryan Hipwood (QLD)
- Justen Allport (NSW)
- Joel Parkinson (QLD)
- Kieren Perrow (NSW)
- Mark Mathews (NSW)
- Laurie Towner (NSW)
- Kipp Caddy (NSW)
- Dean Morrison (NSW)
- Mikey Brennan (TAS)
- Danny Griffiths (TAS)
- James Hollmer-Cross (TAS)
- Tyler Hollmer-Cross (TAS)
- James McKean (TAS)
- Kelly Nordstrom (TAS)
- Marti Paradisis (TAS)
- Benn Richardson (TAS)
- Shaun Wallbank (TAS)
- Alex Zawadzki (TAS)
- Laura Enever (NSW)
- Felicity Palmateer (WA)
- Laura Macaulay (WA)
- Lizze Stokely (TAS)
Comments
Can we expect Mark Visser to drop from the sky on a jet ski this event?
Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time....
Is mark visser still a big wave surfer?? Have not see much footage of him.. ever.. what’s he up to??
https://www.theoceanwarrior.com/
Assuming its towboarding only or are the "athletes" going to have to actually paddle themselves over the ledge?
If it's a paddle event, Bierke's gotta be a shoo in? Remember that footage of him paddling waaaay deep behind the step!
The human goose himself...
https://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/mark-visser-jumps-storm-swell...
Points should be awarded for backflip dismounts and foamball gymnastics. I think its a wave where the theres not many clean exits, but its certainly not short of entertainment and charging.
so true mate if you do something funky at the end of a wave you should be rewarded.
Needs a decent swell. Last one looked to have been held on a routine medium sized SW groundswell.
haven't really missed seeing the comps
Shipsterns is way more interesting to watch then Cape Solander imo. There is way more "completions" at Shippies than the Cape.