By PHIL JARRATT
IT SEEMS like half the surfer population of Noosa has been in Bali this week, clustered in the village of Canggu, which is just across the creek from us at the northern edge of the south coast sprawl.
The occasion was the annual Deus Ex Machina Nine Foot and Single contest, but it might as well have been renamed the Fete du Harry. Although Noosa surfer Harrison Roach has dominated this single fin festival in previous years, in nearly half a century of reporting on surfing events, I have rarely seen one person dominate so comprehensively, and create such a gulf between himself and his competitors.
I am thinking back to Michael Peterson in the early ’70s, Mark Richards in the late ’70s and early ’80s, and of course, Kelly Slater through much of the ’90s and ’00s. Each of these great surfers was virtually unbeatable in their era, but more importantly, they raised the bar for everyone else. Harry Roach raised the bar at the Canggu Rivermouth last weekend, and not just in traditional longboarding (for which he is best known) but on shortboards and body surfing too.
I have been watching this guy surf (often with my jaw dropping and my eyes popping out of my head) since he was a grommet, and while it is always a treat to watch him carve those graceful lines across the face, frankly I was beginning to think that his new focus on soul surfing in remote locations had perhaps blunted his competitive edge. Well, that theory went right out the window in Canggu.
At 27 he is a naturally gifted athlete at the height of his powers, and when he is focused (not necessarily on winning but on shredding) he is unbeatable. He joins the pantheon of illustrious forebears. There were plenty of other gifted surfers on display at the Nine Foot and Single, including Harry’s Noosa home boys Josh Constable, Matt Cuddihy, Doc Bexon, Zye Norris and Tom Morat, but no-one was able to consistently take it to the next level. In the longboard final, Harrison locked it up with two near-perfect scores, then put on a master class of good, old-fashioned hot-dogging, mixing up coffin rides with backwards paddle-ins and fin-first take-offs.
In the Womp Comp, held in challenging riptide conditions for swimmers, he flicked his body high onto the face and flew down the line ahead of the white water, arching his back to create a foil. Although swimming is just a sideline for him, he was technically perfect. I know our mutual friend Mark Cunningham would have been proud.
But Harry saved the best for last. Switching from tiny fish to long raked guns as he progressed (and swigging a refreshing beer between heats) he just went mental in the Under Nine Foot division, held in perfect Rivermouth Rights, fanned by a light offshore breeze with barrels opening up for him as if on command. In the judging tower, we were running out of superlatives. Only old rival Josh Constable came close to spoiling the party, when a solid performance looked like keeping Harry out of the final until he pulled a 9 from thin air in the final minute, which is a very Kelly thing to do.
With the surf peaking for the final, Harry’s first deep barrel set the tone for what was to come, getting the perfect score from one of my fellow judges. The rest of us saw a couple of technical flaws, but when he did it again on a bigger wave and went even deeper and stayed there longer, he was not to be denied.
Not content with dominating in the water, Harrison Roach was also the main attraction back at the Deus Temple, where the flock gathered to worship and watch film-maker Dustin Humphrey’s latest production, South To Sian, which documents Harry and Zye’s most recent excellent adventure, surfing and dirt-biking in dreamy locations the length of the Indonesian archipelago. And it’s a great flick.
To prove he’s not just a pretty face, Harry wrote and read the narration script for the feature, and helped out in the edit suite. And to prove none of the adulation has gone too much to his head, when the star of the show saw your elderly columnist and wife struggling to find a seat in the packed open-air cinema, he leapt forward to save us from the crush and made space for us on the VIP lounge.
Look, he’s not the Messiah, but he’s not a naughty little boy either. He’s a talented guy and a surfer who is really starting to make a mark internationally. Noosa should be proud of him.
