OXBOW WLT final - MALDIVES
Pasta Point – Chaaya Island
Monday 26th October 2009
A cool zephyr blew across the four to five feet faces at Pasta Point today, kissing the foam-flecked lips as the waves reeled and bent, each with a personality, over the reef to feather on the shallows. The big Indian Ocean weather drummer had set up its kit and began to play big rolls on the tom-toms, producing beautiful long-distance sets. Round one took off in prime conditions, within a man-on-man gladiatorial knock-out format, forcing each competitor to produce dazzling solos. Among the standouts, Colin McPhillips, Kai Sallas, Eduardo Bage, Ned Snow, Ben Skinner, Harley Ingleby, Jared Neal and Amaro Matos all weaved radical patterns on the faces. As it got hot and hazy the surf improved, becoming increasingly glassy, unravelling further down the point over the fizzing reef. The judges continued to reward control and flow mixed with improvisation – the confidence and audacity of the great soloist - as Antoine Delpero, Josh Constable and Remi Arauzo won with model technique and immaculate timing. Phil Rajzman, Taylor Jensen, Troy Mothershead and, inevitably, current world champion Bonga Perkins posted mega scores, wailing on their respective instruments, with the Indian Ocean providing the pulse.
These high-rollers rehearsed the entire history of longboard surfing and let loose in ways that showed an astonishing all-round capability. Some surfers were so tuned in to the conditions you could have mistaken them for sea life they were so well adapted. Dolphins in pods leap so high because they work collaboratively to produce strong vortices and eddies in the water that supplement their muscle power, allowing them to burst higher and further than their standing body mass should allow. Great surfers move collaboratively with the wave, turning impossible wave scenarios into mouth-watering manoeuvres. But surfing has always been a marriage between form and function. The combined craft of the shaper and glasser precedes the expert rider who turns craft into art. The balance is delicate, as many of the necessarily lightweight contest boards have been creased in free surfs already. Bonga, a guru of board design, explained how “everyone is trying to hit turns so hard through the middle section that sometimes you just cannot fit a 9 footer into some of the super tight landings and you pearl.”
Frenchman Alexis Deniel had to surf his entire heat against Ben Skinner on a borrowed board after breaking his own free surfing during a short interval before the heat started. Ben himself was exceptional, scoring an 8.25 on one of his personal Skingdog models. “This is a perfect performance backhand wave,” said Ben after winning his heat, “so I bought a quiver with more refined rails for really quick turning, just keeping the board thickness in the middle.” It worked out beautifully, as did Ned Snow’s Hawaiian built Matt Yerxa EPS boards, sprayed with awesome artwork by Nat Woolley. Ned was flowing through crisp sequences so smoothly he looked unstoppable: “Usually when I travel abroad from Hawaii I have to widen or thicken my boards for slower waves, but these waves are like home, so I kept them the same, real thin and fast, and they are working great.” Today was water music at its best.
Sam Bleakley
