Surf Ranch Pro, Day Two: “If yesterday was an under-risen souffle, today had genuine moments of genius!”

The elevation in performance showed the brutal truth that pro surfing cannot sustain a 34 man Tour. There is much dead wood to be culled. 

Apart from flushing toilets and dentistry I’m not really a gal who gets moist over human engineering marvels. The cosmic fact of a watery planet with solar-driven real waves is enough intellectual and spiritual cud for me to spend a lifetime chewing on.

The last human achievement that really lit me up – in a how the fuck did they do that kind of way – was the lost ruins of Nan Madol on Pohnpei. We sailed out of Ala Moana harbour to the Marshalls, spent weeks surfing perfect waves alone then made landfall on dark at Kolonia. It took one day to find P-Pass, which we dismissed as another garden variety reef pass, before stumbling on the ruins after a fisherman in a local village took us out to the nearest reef pass. A whole city built on the water made from fifty-foot long hexagonal basalt columns in a pre-machine age. And no-one still knows how it was built.

So forgive if a plow running through a pool to create a head-high wave does not elicit an appropriately awestruck response.

So how to cover this Surf Ranch on it’s own terms. If yesterday was an under-risen souffle presented to an unappreciative and largely absent audience today had genuine moments of genius. Primarily Medina’s shock and awe opening run – may as well adopt the terminology. More on that later.

It took twenty surfers enjoying four perfect machine-made waves each before the 21^st in line, Kanoa Igarashi, put the promised progression into high-performance surfing. Kanoa has been my darkhorse pick with his brand of inscrutable pumped-up safety surfing with progressive edge. And he listens to Snake. And those Sharp Eyes look insane under his feet. 

Kanoa attempted and completed the first air out the back, a fin-throw-to-reverse before spinning into the barrel. His insanely well-ridden wave was awarded an 8.93. The spread of .43 to Kellys 8.5 showed the corner the judges painted themselves into yesterday with that egregious over-score. Kelly’s wave should have had a seven in front of it with Kanoa a low eight to allow headroom for what it surely to come. 

Strider said the “crowd is pumped up”. It didn’t look like it. It didn’t sound like it. The hyped stadium vibe was funereal over the broadcast. It made me think of Dane showing up for the first heat of the year in his sophomore year. In early morning high tide three-foot Snapper you couldn’t elbow within a hundred metres through a crowd intent on getting close to the messiah. He lost riding a CI MTF twin fin. Three days later, in pouring rain, a bigger crowd watched him massacre head-high runners against Blake Thornton in round two. Grown men were openly weeping with joy. Not criticism, just putting the hype into recent historical context. 

Surf journalist Nick Carroll said yesterday the event worked better as live spectacle then broadcast event but didn’t say why or how. A curious omission. On the broadcast we got slo-mo replays, angles and most importantly expert surfer commentary. It really worked. Wilko was great, Parko was better. During the much-anticipated Griff run he expressed a frustration the average surf fan was feeling: “He’s got to start going for it”. After choking for a run, Griff put the fins out the back in the same section, just prior to the opening tube, as Kanoa. 

We seemed marooned in a weird place, where weird was nowhere near weird enough. Weird, lame, not weird good. The camera angle with Peter Mel with his back to the pool was surreal beyond belief. The new head of the WSL Kelly Slater Wave Company, Nick Franklin, has a background with the Disney Company. These basic errors in optics must surely grind his gears. The thirty-second inter-heat pressers are so rote and token as to be useless.

Kolohe was brilliant. His opening left surfed at a pace, turn speed and with repertoire that shaded his peers. The spicy attack finally bought audible cheers and whistles from the crowd. American flags hung from the …….side wall. 

The top seeds in three-packs was great. In this crude form a new format is taking place that can and should be adopted in the ocean. A day (or even two) of three-man heats with a leaderboard and all surfing against all. The separation of the wheat from the chaff is undeniable. 

Owen Wright surfed the best left of the event up to that point. The shorter equipment added zest to the rotation. His backside tuberiding, flawless.

Each high seed who surfed made a mockery of what seemed an increasingly pedestrian group of backmarkers yesterday. With few exceptions the elevation in performance came with the increasing seed, showing the relentlessly brutal truth that pro surfing cannot sustain a 34 man Tour. Talent is crucial, talent prevails. There is much dead wood to be culled.

“Each second adds points to the score,” said Pottz.

How? A half-point per second, a quarter? All we know is that judges are scoring “highlights” and maybe as Wilko indicated “the drama of the tube entry”. 

Each high seed who surfed made a mockery of what seemed an increasingly pedestrian group of backmarkers yesterday. With few exceptions the elevation in performance came with the increasing seed, showing the relentlessly brutal truth that pro surfing cannot sustain a 34 man Tour. Talent is crucial, talent prevails. There is much dead wood to be culled. 

Jordy was the first to sacrifice the end tube sections to launch. That looked unbelievably refreshing. Italo was crucially underscored in his opening left but blazed his right for an 8.27. That put Kelly outside the cut, something that would have occurred much sooner if his 8.5 was correctly scored.

In late afternoon light, with what looked like windmill vanes throwing shapes on the faces, Gabe Medina stood next to the chain fence waiting for the opening left. That wave was ridden in a terrifyingly efficient and brutal fashion. The perfect melding of man and machine. A greased Kerrupt flip on the end was like a brick to the head from the future. The game is over. The 9.3 compared to Kelly’s 8.5 was a joke. It should have a been a 15 by that scale.

Finally something like real scoreboard pressure was applied and Toledo choked on it. His last right, the last wave of the day sizzled in the darkening evening. A lofted alley-oop that made the background disappear. 

There was, as Strider said, “ Nowhere to hide”.

Cut to Strider standing alone, on an expanse of fake sand. 

Fade to black.

By my reckoning, the leaderboard looks about right.

PS: Two thousand and change watching Toledo’s incredible surfing on Facebook.