Say what you like about Kelly’s wave tub, and a lot of people do, while it’s not the future of surfing, it’s an interesting diversion from the real tour.
The only problem is, it counts for the same points as real WCT events in real surf, as quite a few final five hopefuls found in the cut-throat new format employed in an effort to attract eyeballs and win back core credibility in the return of the Surf Ranch Pro to the schedule at Lemoore, California last weekend.
The first championship tour event since the mid-season cut after Margaret River last month saw a reduced field of 24 men and 12 women doing battle now to keep their hopes alive for September’s WSL final series, also in California but in the real waves of Lower Trestles.
To the surfers it must have seemed like one damn thing after another, with many of them having spent a gruelling Australian season trying to stay on tour, only to start the next battle in the weird and not universally loved big tub. But we’ll get back to the ramification for the surfers in a minute.
First, let’s look at how the return to the Ranch was greeted by the punters, starting with me.
To be honest, I was ready to give up on it after the last WSL event a couple of years back. The whole act was just too robotic, too soulless, and well, too artificial. Having been there and stood suited up on the ramp with a Firewire under my arm, right where Italo did a somersault of glee the other day and might have broken his neck, and then not been allowed to surf (thanks for nothing, Mr D from NYC!), I have to keep my personal feelings about this joint in the middle of California’s nowhere divorced from what I feel about it as part of the world professional tour.
So while watching the runs between the endless commercial breaks that the new format and the wave machine facilitate, I thought about skateboarding, which doesn’t happen often, and the pleasant surprise I’d felt when I watched it for the first time live and bowlside at the London Olympics a bit over a decade ago.
Damn, it was exciting. The bowl doesn’t move, it remains the same so it all comes down to the skater.
At Lemoore the wave does move but it does almost the same things almost all the time, so creating a point of difference all comes down to the surfer.
There are no priority tactics, no wave knowledge issues, no real fear factor (although the bottom can hurt), it’s all about digging deep within, trusting your skill and judgement to tuck deeper in the barrel, punt higher, gouge faster and keep your rails on edge.
Add to that the pressure cooker environment of the stands packed with rowdy drunks, full of sports and sponsor beer and wishing you to fall off or score a 10, and hating you if you don’t, and the whole thing is the mind game from hell.
And as cut-throat as the new system seems, for mine that’s what makes it work.
It’s a level playing field, and even though the oldest competitor in the draw was exactly three times as old as the youngest, the veteran Kelly Slater and the rookie Caity Simmers were both facing the same challenges. And, it must be said, cool-headed Caity handled it better than the man who designed the Surf Ranch system, which still produces the best artificial waves in the world.
So what did it all mean? Well, both the winners jumped up the rankings and are now heading to El Salvador wearing the yellow jerseys. Six-times world champ Carissa Moore simply outclassed everyone, although she didn’t meet Caity Simmers, who fell to Caroline Marks in the semis after producing what I regard as the best surfing of the event, men and women.
In the men’s event, Griffin Colapinto was the form surfer start to finish against a rampaging Italo Ferreira, who as always was value for money in the entertainment stakes. Italo’s second jumps him into final five contention, while Griff is looking like a serious world title possibility. For the Aussies, we lost Jack Robinson, Callum Robson and Liam O’Brien in the first round, and Ryan Callinan and Connor O’Leary in the second, with only Ethan Ewing progressing to finals day, where he surfed out of his skin and missed the final by a whisker, moving up the rankings to fourth after his third placing. None of our three girls made it past the second round, despite Steph surfing elegantly in some deep barrels.
After bombing out in the second (or “Night Round“) in front of a rowdy crowd, Kelly joined the commentary team for his usual on-point summaries, but then he referenced the negatives the event had been getting on social media, saying: “We read that stuff, but people have to realise that this is not like other contests, this is looking at surfing in a completely different way.”
Right on, KS. It’s like skateboarding, and against my better judgement, I like it!
