"I actually screamed when I saw the score drop. Like seriously? A 4.60 for a completed air? Bitch, please."

Welcome back to BeachGrit’s extremely idiosyncratic — and possibly idiotic — coverage of the women’s Championship Tour. When we last talked, well, I don’t even remember what was happening. But we’re at Bells now! And the dreaded cut looms so super large!

Yesterday the women competed in clean, wildly inconsistent surf at Winkipop, which is a perfectly fine name for a surf spot but it sounds like something else entirely. The imagination runs mad with possibilities. It was a hard watch live, I have to say, due to the incredibly lengthy lulls.

Yes, I cheated and waited for replays and I feel fine. Your girl has to stay sane over here, though that ship may have sailed a long time ago and is now way out in the ocean beyond the horizon on the way to, well, somewhere. Warm and tropical, that’s where I’d like that ship to be headed right now.

From the start, it was clear that the judges wanted to see point break surfing. In practice, that means lots of down the line speed with many turns linked together and punctuated with a snappy close-out turn. Winki is a slow-fast sort of joint that alternately bowls up and runs away, which proved to be a bit of a nightmare for the goofyfooters. In fact, none of them made their heats.

The day’s stand-out was Gabriela Bryan, who readily dispatched wildcard Nadia Erostarbe. It was a lopsided heat, as Nadia repeatedly got caught behind the sections on her backhand. But it was a nice showcase for Gabriela, who is now in her third season on Tour and is becoming the Ethan Ewing of the women’s draw. Powerful and short-legged, Gabriela whips her turns into tight arcs that few of the other women can match. She’s in her element with a open-face right and she made the most of it.

The day started with an upset when Luana Silva won her heat against Molly Picklum. It was easy to see what the judges had in mind from this heat, and Luana won it by stringing together a nice series of smooth turns. She looked good, in fact! Luana’s bounced on and off Tour a few times, and she seems to just… get nervous sometimes. This time, she surfed clean with few mistakes and it worked out for her.

Over the past few years, it feels like the judges have set a trap for Molly. They’ve thrown her big scores for hucking it up into a big section and landing it. That massive hack she did to win at Sunset was a legit big turn that earned the score. But that approach only works — or only should work — when the section is actually bone-crushing and critical.

Whatever we might say about head-high Winkipop, I’m pretty sure bone-crushing isn’t really in the conversation. Against Luana, the judges rightly refused to reward Molly for trying to rely on smashing the close-out. She’s got the skillset to adjust, so I’m too worried about Molly here. She’s also still sitting pretty in the top five. But she does need to adjust for the less thrilling waves on Tour.

It came as no surprise to me that Sawyer Lindblad had the highest single wave score out of the goofyfooters. She’s turning into a fun surfer to watch, and uniquely among the backsiders, she managed to string together a series of strong turns without getting caught out by Winki’s weird sections. Last year’s rookie of the year, Sawyer is looking better all the time. Watch out Caroline Marks. Though Sawyer made her work for it, Lakey won this one with a 7.50 and 5.83 to advance and she moves up to eighth in the rankings.

The easy answer to the Sally Fitzgibbons-Caity Simmers heat is that Caity lost it by falling too many times. But there’s zero fun in easy answers and we’re all about fun here. Sal won this one with straightforward down-the-line surfing of the sort that the judges rewarded all day. Caity tried to turn the heat late in the game with a air reverse. The judges said, nah. Were they right? Well, I did say we weren’t all that into easy answers here.

Yes, the criteria was super clear from the start of the day. Go down the line, do lots of turns, hit the close-out. The judges pushed the scale pretty hard, and some pretty ordinary surfing was pulling big scores. I’m not sure it’s doing women’s surfing any favors to be throwing a mid-7 at a few turns and a close-out bang, when most of the women’s draw can do that sort of thing six days out of seven.

When Carissa Moore pulled an air reverse at Newcastle in her heat against Johanne Defay back in 2021, it was a one-maneuver wave and the judges threw her a 9.90. The air was lofty and clean, and completed airs are rare in women’s surfing. At the time, it felt right that the judges rewarded the progression. But it feels like they’ve been less than consistent about scoring airs since then and that’s a problem for women’s surfing.

Let’s take a detour for a hot minute.

When airs became a thing in men’s contest surfing, surfers could get scores for like, just landing that thing. Then, everyone decided well, we can’t have surfing just be an air show with guys pumping down the line just to throw an air reverse.

The men’s criteria changed to reward airs that fit into the overall flow of maneuvers — not just popped up out of nowhere. To be clear, I think that change was super good for the progression of men’s surfing, but it only came after it was clear that landing a single air was pretty basic shit.

On the women’s side, we aren’t at that point. If nice, basic turns score a 7, there’s no incentive to take the risk of going to the air. And, well, look where we are. Pretty much no one is trying to do airs in women’s surfing, never mind landing them.

So, why not throw some big scores for going for it? Why not tear up the fucking script and reward risk and progression? It’s 2025, and it shouldn’t be possible to safety surf to an event win. So, hey let’s stop doing that.

When Caity loses heats, it’s often because she beat herself, and to some degree, that’s what happened to her against Sal. There were opportunities for Caity to win that heat before she took to the air in the final minutes, for sure.

But if Caity can land airs and her opponent can’t, why the hell shouldn’t she be rewarded for it? Sure, it wasn’t the best air reverse we’ve ever seen, but it was clean and Caity got a good, full rotation in there. I think I actually screamed when I saw the score drop. Like seriously? A 4.60 for a completed air? Bitch, please. Give her the score — and encourage the other girls to push harder. Simple.

In the remaining three heats, the goofyfoot massacre continued with both Erin Brooks and Caroline Marks going down. Erin looked out of sync with the wave in her heat against Isabella Nichols. She seemed to struggle with timing her turns and couldn’t really put anything together. Erin sits ninth in the rankings, tied on points with Lakey.

Nichols, meanwhile, made the most of her forehand advantage and while she lacks Gabriela’s smash factor, she looked smooth and steady. Much the same could be said of Bettylou Sakura Johnson, who’s had an inconsistent season so far. She’s in a tight three-way battle around the cut line with Bella Kenworthy and Brisa Hennessey, and now sits twelfth.

In the final heat of the day, Tyler Wright easily beat local girl Ellie Harrison. They rode five waves between them, which was pretty much the pattern for most of the day. There wasn’t anything super notable about this one, and Tyler made it through with a pair of sixes.

Thanks to Caity’s loss, Gabriela has taken over as the world number one. It’s the first time in her career she’s led the rankings and it seems likely that it won’t be the last. Last year, Gabriela just missed the final five and she’s steadily improving. She meets Isabella in the quarters, when the lights next come up on our favorite circus.

"Is that a wave? Are you sure? We on!"