Surf Ranch Pro: It’s finally here! Watch
live with friends!
By Chas Smith
Come share your first impression!
We’ve been wagging our tongues about this Surf
Ranch Pro (watch here!),
this very moment right now, since it was announced there was going
to be a real competition, not an expression session, not a Founders
Cup. Jen See is in the crowd, taking notes, observing. I’ll be
there Saturday but at his moment am in front of my computer, like
you, watching and maybe confusedly.
Is it fun? Exciting?
Or dull?
I know there are too many ads. I know that without any help. 1
minute on 5 minutes off is how it feels and that is too much. I
like Wade Carmichael and I like Merino wool but I don’t know how
much more I can take about life on the Championship Tour and the
necessity of Merino wool.
They knew this was coming the 1 minute on 5 minutes off and
didn’t prepare fun interstitial programming?
Don’t they have a studio in Santa Monica?
Still. I don’t know what to think.
What do you think?
I’ve asked Matt Warshaw what he thinks and we shall hear from
him soon.
P.S. Did Ronald Blakey change his voice for this event? Is he
trying on a new persona? I thought Crocodile Dundee was in the
booth for a good 10 minutes.
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Naked: Events lose their sponsors for the
’19 season!
By Chas Smith
Vanished in the night!
I spent much of yesterday pondering the newly
released 2019 World Surf League championship tour schedule and can
we all admit that it is almost perfect? Oh of course it is our job
to grumble, and we get paid very well for it, but really it feels
like the WSL listened to our pleas and responded.
The season ends at Pipeline like it’s supposed to and begins on
the Gold Coast, a nod to those simpler times when the Association
of Surfing Professional’s offices occupied a tidy second story
Coolangatta floor. Marg River might not be a favorite but I do love
that the WSL is returning to a very sharky land maybe hoping for
another “Mick Bump” as the sky high ratings for J-Bay ’15. The rest
is as it should be, as we’ve grown accustomed,
Many openly question the viability of the World Surf League
moving forward but ’19 is robust. The only thing I’m really curious
about is the naked events. Sponsors disappeared into the night.
Vanished without a trace except Meo and Oi which may or may not be
cell service providers and Billabong for Pipeline and Rip Curl for
Bells.
But the rest? Where did they go? Quiksilver has been sponsoring
the Gold Coast event since I cut my teeth on surf journalism.
Quiksilver has been synonymous with France since Tom Curren was a
competitive threat. Same-ish with Billabong and Tahiti and
Billabong and Teahupoo.
So maybe it’s only Oaktree brands which have been disappeared
but still 7 out of the 11 events are nude.
And do you think it is possible, even the slightest chance, that
we could crowdfund title sponsorship of one? The BeachGrit Bali Pro
say or the BeachGrit Pro Bells Beach (in association with Rip
Curl)?
Which do you think we should choose?
Gold Coast Men’s Pro: April 3 – 13, 2019
Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach: April 17 – 27, 2019
Bali Men’s Pro: May 13 – 24, 2019
Margaret River Pro: May 27 – June 7, 2019
Oi Rio Pro: June 20 – 28, 2019
J-Bay Open: July 9 – 22, 2019
Tahiti Pro Teahupo’o: August 21 – September 1, 2019
Surf Ranch Pro: September 19 – 22, 2019
France Men’s Pro: October 3 – 13, 2019
Meo Pro Peniche: October 16 – 28, 2019
Billabong Pipe Masters: December 8 – 20, 2019
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Whereas the right at Surf Ranch is remarkable, the left
is merely fun and highly rippable. | Photo: KSWaveCo
Explained: Why the left (sorta) sucks at
Surf Ranch!
By Derek Rielly
A revealing interview with pool co-inventor Adam
Fincham…
Okay. The left don’t…suck…but it ain’t no
secret the right is the money shot at the Slater-Fincham
pool.
Did you ever wonder why?
Is it, despite the planting of trees all around the joint, the
prevailing wind that makes it crumble so? Some quirk of water
volume or similar?
Earlier today, tech magazine Wired ran an interview
with the pool’s co-inventor Adam Fincham, a Research Associate
Professor at University of Southern California who has worked with
Kelly since 2006 to create a masterpiece of bathymetry on the
outskirts of a lousy cotton-farming town four hours north-east of
Los Angeles.
Fincham stops our conversation again to stare at the wave,
and I ask him what he’s looking for.
“I don’t want to see too much whitewater coming off the
fence there,” he says, pointing to the part of the wave that’s
closest to the fence. It’s that left again—a wave peeling to the
left of the surfer—barreling toward the south side of the lagoon.
Where there should be an unblemished, clean face of a wave, there’s
a spray of surf shooting up in the direction of the hydrofoil
apparatus.
“We saw it happen on one of the waves a while
ago, and we’re trying to ascertain what control we have over it in
this particular situation,” Fincham says. “This was designed to
only make rights, and then we retrofit it to make lefts as well. So
it’s not optimized for the lefts. It’s a
weakness.”
And…
It’s why he’s still obsessing over it now, that wave that’s
showing just a little bit of whitewater where it shouldn’t. Fincham
is nowhere to be found when I leave the Surf Ranch in the late
afternoon, but there’s a good chance he’s off somewhere staring at
that left, the one that’s not yet perfect.
Other notable facts: the pool is filled with
fifteen million gallons of water and on a hot day, which ain’t so
rare out in Lemoore, a quarter-of-a-million gallons can
evaporate.
The pool’s deepest point is nine feet; shallowest is
three-and-a-half.
The hydrofoil weighs 10o tons and is covered by tarps so no
secrets are revealed and it has solar panels on the top so drones
can’t film it.
Forget what you read here yesterday. At 61-to-1,
y'can't go past Conner O'Leary for a dark horse bet. | Photo:
WSL
Surf Gambling: Meet the dark horse who
could turn your thirty bucks into $2000 at the Surf Ranch Pro!
By Derek Rielly
An extremely well-plotted betting slip by a former
Fantasy Surfer winner…
Betting on surf contests flutters the lips, elevates the
blood pressure and so on. Did you know that all the
odds for WCT events are set by non-surfers using statistics and
nothing else?
There is no insider trading, no quarter given to the surf
forecast, no nod to a surfer’s affinity with a particular wave.
And what does that say to you, a life-long surfer, a student of
the game?
Well, it screams advantage.
And, so, over the back end of the tour, BeachGrit, with
a modest $500 deposit and the advice of former WCT surfer and 2015
Fantasy Surfer champion Blake Thornton, is going to beat hell out
of Australia’s betting agencies.
Because the Surf Ranch Pro has evaporated the forty-year-old
man-on-man format, opportunities are a little limited. You can bet
on the winner and nothing else.
Still, let’s have some fun.
First, we’ll drop fifty dollars on Gabriel Medina, who
is at 5-to-one. Thornton, who is thirty-three years old,
says the event is, likely, a battle between Filipe Toledo and
Gabriel but it’s Gab who has a slightly stronger backhand, on the
face and in the tube. “Both are extremely strong on their
forehands,” says Thornton, “but the amount of manoeuvres Gabriel’s
able to do on his backhand and the way they’re linked together
perfectly and how in the pocket they are and how he’ll go into the
next one with with ease will be the difference.”
Second, forty dollars on Filipe at 3.75-to-one.
This is a little hedge bet. A likely winner but at under four to
one, not especially lucrative. With a hundred and fifty in the
game, we’ll throw forty on Filipe to cover ourselves. “He has the
wave completely dialled. Three full-rotation alley-oops on one wave
is pretty unbelievable.”
Thornton says that because the right breaks differently to the
left, two distinct barrels compared to one barrel and turns, the
screw-foots have a slight advantage. And, says Thornton, “I was
watching the highlights from Conner’s first trip there and I don’t
think I’ve seen anyone surf a left like him.” Potential
win: two gees.
Of the middle pack, Thornton says that were it a heat-by-heat
event, Adriano would be a cinch to get through a few rounds but
since it’s winner-only, at 26-to-one, you’d be a little
nuts to go past Kolohe Andino (“He’s due for a big
result”) and Kanoa Igarashi (“He’s looking amazing on those
Sharp Eyes) at 41-to-one.
Throw ten bucks at the best performing surfer at the Founders’
Cup, Jordy Smith (11-to-one) and we’ve got a well
plotted betting slip.
Or are we just throwing peanuts in the air?
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Big changes for 2019 tour! Quiksilver pulls out of tour
opener and event in Hossegor. Tour finale in the Ments cancelled.
And Pipe is back. Maybe John John too! | Photo: Steve
Sherman/WSL/@tsherms
Revealed: The 2019 World Surf League tour
schedule!
By Chas Smith
Margaret River returns and other surprises!
Press release from Santa Monica (sorry I’ll
riff in a bit but gotta run out and grab plate lunch real quick. In
the meantime…):
“Very pleased to announce a healthy and diverse 2019
schedule to challenge the world’s best surfers throughout the
year,” Kieren Perrow, WSL Commissioner, said. “This level has to be
the proving ground and the platform for the advancement of the
world’s best surfing and we’re very happy with where it’s at next
season.”
Once again returning to world-class venues from Australia to
Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa, North America, French Polynesia,
Europe and Hawaii, a key change in the 2019 CT calendar is the
breakup for the three-event Australia leg with a break following
the Gold Coast and Bells Beach events before recommencing with the
Bali event and returning to Margaret River as the fourth stop of
the season.
“Margaret River has been a key stop on the CT for several
seasons now and we had the unique and unfortunate circumstance of
having to cancel this season’s event due to aggressive shark
activity in the area,” Perrow said. “Working with our surfers,
event partners and the local community, we’ve moved the dates of
the Margaret River event later in the year to improve the pacing of
the season as well as ensure the best chance for world-class
conditions at all breaks.”
2019 Men’s Championship Tour Schedule*:
Gold Coast Men’s Pro: April 3 – 13, 2019
Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach: April 17 – 27, 2019
Bali Men’s Pro: May 13 – 24, 2019
Margaret River Pro: May 27 – June 7, 2019
Oi Rio Pro: June 20 – 28, 2019
J-Bay Open: July 9 – 22, 2019
Tahiti Pro Teahupo’o: August 21 – September 1, 2019
Surf Ranch Pro: September 19 – 22, 2019
France Men’s Pro: October 3 – 13, 2019
Meo Pro Peniche: October 16 – 28, 2019
Billabong Pipe Masters: December 8 – 20, 2019
