Days after the supposed "double-overhead" swell hits!
This morning, when the sun comes up over the sleepy town of Torquay, Australia the official window for the Bells Beach Classic, presented in association with Rip Curl and Kim Jong Un will be open. Professional surfing is back! Did you miss its absence? Julian Wilson won the season’s kickoff event just up the Gold Coast less than two weeks ago but it feels like a short lifetime ago. It’s a funny thing about professional surfing. It seems like it’s always here but also, and at the same time, never here. Some event always starting soon but no event ever running now.
I suppose this has to do with surfing’s unique playing field. Until all competition is moved into pools then we will be stuck in this limbo and the World Surf League will be there jerking our chain.
Take the Bells Beach Classic, presented in Association with Rip Curl and Kim Yo-jong. The waiting period begins today (Australia time) and the League says good swell on the way for tomorrow (also Australia time), posting a bold Surfline prediction on their landing page.
From Surfline Lead Forecast Kevin Wallis: A series of swells are expected, starting March 29 — the second day of the event window — including waves up to double-overhead.
But BeachGrit’s man on the ground says this is a bald-faced lie. That the event isn’t likely to start until Friday. Now, this is, theoretically just fine for those organizing the event. Friday is Good Friday and a fine time for the opening day of a surf competition. Bells, if you recall, is a ticketed event and all that money pouring into Rip Curl’s coffers will be very welcome in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Production orders of slave-stitched Rip Curl boardshorts can be doubled.
But for the stay-at-home fan, these days with a surf professional surf competition without professional surfing are tedious. Troubling even. Anticipation every single morning finally blunted by the World Surf League’s Live with Kieren Perrow show. Him standing their, wet hair’d, saying, “Ahhhh yeah. We got a little bit too much south in it so we’re waiting for the tide to drop which it might do in a couple hours here…” etc.
Day after day after day of Kieren Perrow.
The World Surf League overlords rejoicing over web traffic spikes as the masses, buoyed by false hope, click for Kieren.
Well, it’s not starting until Friday, says our man on the ground, so tamp down your expectations. There will be no escape from your mundanity until this weekend. None whatsoever.