Day 5 at the Ballito Pro

After another 7am start with the remaining two heats of the Round of 48 we finally began to feel as if the tide was turning in what has been a pretty testing event. Tough conditions in the form of onshores and spring tides have chipped away at any time credits we had in hand initially and everyone has had to stay focussed and look to the positives of life on tour.

Warm early morning sunrises greet us each day

And so we moved into the No Loser Round of 24 where three-man heats gave some respite to our surfers.  This round is a kind of two part phase which works like this : The winners move straight thru' to to half-fill eight man-on-man heats (round of 16), while 2nd and 3rd placed surfers are reshuffled into man-on-man sudden death heats.The winners of these heats filling the round of 16 match ups.

Moving straight thru with their wins were, Tomas Hermes (BRA), Travis Logie (ZAF), Torrey Meister (HAW), Adriano de Souza (BRA), Jordy Smith (ZAF), Nat Young (USA), Glenn Hall (IRL) and Alejo Muniz (BRA).  Conditions were probably the best we've seen as instead of the early morning offshores swinging round to become onshores we were blessed by a gentle “scout cell” of offshore south westerly wind coming through a good 30 hours ahead of the expected next storm front which is set to spoil Sunday, the final day of the Mr Price Pro. So the continuing 4'-5' swell was cleaned up nicely and heats ran smoothly in the hot sunshine much to the delight of big crowds. We eventually eneded two heats shy of the round of 16 as hoped and so Glenn Hall (IRL) and Alejo Muniz(BRA) are the only surfers without heat matchups yet for this stage of competition.

Lunchtime commentary view

Stopping short allowed for spectators to slip off the beach without missing any surf action and make their way a couple miles up the coast to Salt Rock beach where Mr Price puts on a massive  two day music extravaganza, FREE! South Africa's top bands and DJ's perform on a huge stage, on the beach from 4pm until midnight on both nights and last year we had daily crowds of 20 000 people hanging out in groovy beach party mood. There is a very small police presence in this affluent coastal town and no incidents have ever sullied the vibe making it a major drawcard for those not especially into the biggest surfing event in South Africa.

Nine hours lie ahead to complete the event and so one more early start is needed in an effort to lave just semis and final for Sunday. With two man heats for the remainder of competition it is visually easier understanding for those people not familiar with competitive surfing and we have exciting match-ups to come:

Tomas Hermes vs Nathaniel Curran

Travis Logie vs Nathan Hedge

Torrey Meister vs Brian Toth

Adriano de Souza vs Pat Gadauskas

Jordy Smith vs Nate Yeomans

Nat Young vs Alex Ribeiro

Glenn Hall vs     ???

Alejo Muniz vs  ???

Day 4 @ Ballito Pro - Quiver glasser Nick Williams gives his daily commentary on the comp

Day 4

After the blast from the evening before when the south-westerly came through, we woke super early to have brekko and head across to get the remainder of the round of 96 completed and smash on through the next round of 48 as we have a lot of time to make up.

Adriano de Souza & Brazilian support crew

7am and the first heat of the day was underway and we ploughed through each heat turnover as quickly as possible , nailing 19 halfhour heats in choppy fulltide conditions only made contestable due to the increase in swell from yeaterday's weatherfront. All of the morning heats had seen clean 4'-5' faces although not many rideable tubes but an abundance of excellent scores were award throuhgout the day. There are a few faces that are now looking like possibilities as finalist, although of course it is always a guessing game in trying to predict what kinda curve-ball Mother Nature will throw, but aside form the obvious, there are new faces that are definitely in with a shot.

Mobbed:  Jordy Smith

Number 1 seed Adriano de Souza seems to be a half man-half board mutation that sees him surfing flawlessly no matter what kind of wave he has under him. Jordy Smith stole the show in the afternoon, first by beginning his heat 300m across the rocks at Willard Beach to the right of the contest area in front of the tower and then casually paddling through the turbulent divider of rocks, despite the heavy swell. His timing couldn't have been better as he casually stroked into a perfect set and rode to the beach pulling an air 360 just off the sand to earn an 8.30. By the end of the heat he had a couple of upper 7's and even a 9.14, in a show of greatest ease. There is another Brazilian though who has awoken a lot of interest with his crazy surfing, who goes by the name of Peterson Crisanto. A betting man would stake a lot on this youngster who I feel is a certainty to make the World Tour in the near future. Beyrick de Vries and Travis Logie are the only Saffas moving through with Jordy but other notable performances came from the likes of Torrey Meister (Haw), Nat Young (USA), Jack Freestone (Aus), Tiago Pires (Prt), Tomas Hermes (Bra) and Brian Toth(Pri), to name just a few.

At the Oakley  “One Wave Wonder” affair Grant “Twiggy” Baker walked away with the win for the second consecutive year for his fearless surfing at Cloudbreak on Fiji during the recent World Tour event. He is a fantastic ambassador, not only for all things South African, but also for the Big Wave movement and some of us made it out by the skin of our teeth as the tequila began to flow freely.

It's an exhausted crew of Officials who dragged down to supper tonight and then wilted off to bed thereafter, as it's another early start in the morning. Alejo Muniz (Bra) will surf in the second heat and along with Peterson Crisanto are my two dark horses in with a shot for the title this year – on presentform, that is.

For the remainder of the Mr Price Pro I see early fulltide starts with offshore changing to lowtide onshores – kinda opposites for what would be preferred, really. So there is nothing certain on the cards . The www.mrpricepro.co.za site will give you the live link to tune in wherever you are and give you the chance to try predict  a winner.

MINI-BUGS 2012 Expression Session

MINI-BUGS 2012 Expression Session from surfsolutions on Vimeo.

Expression Session vid from last night. The winner will be announced tomorrow at event held down in Sennen Cove.

There's a small prioze for best POWER MOVE (crate of Monster) and then we (Quiver Surfboards) is donating a top prize of a custom board for single RADDEST MOVE (Must be completed);

Day 3 at the Ballito Pro

Day 3 . . . . . . hmmmmm!

Muscroft trying to figure it from the competitors area

A shocker of a start to the day with 2' max on multi-angular mini peaks, still unsettled from yesterday's strong onshore. Strange for the overnight offshores to not tidy up yesterday's mess but I guess all I can say is that it was the same for all four competitors in the heats, but for us it was disapointing to see Nic have a bad heat and be one of the first casualties of the day. There isn't much consolation in knowing just how bad the surf was but the two who managed to get the most out of the heat were defending Champ Pat Gadauskas and Eric Geiselman. And so it continued for the next two heats before the heats began to deliver some higher score availability.

Granger Larsen, Adriano deSouza (#1 seed for this event), Jordy Smith and Hodei Collazo were all heat winners as well as, with an incrible performance, Peterson Chrisanto from Brazil took the win in what turned out to be the last heat of the day, with an 8.90 and a 9.00. That heat went so dead that  it was a very quick and easy call to make and tomorrow wil be another early on with us on standby for another 07:00 start(local time).

We still have 28hrs of surfing ahead of us to complete the Mr Price Pro over 4 days so there is still a heavy schedule to keep. The light winds have dropped off altogether and the spectators on the beach have been watching some crazy free-surfing with loads of sick airs of every description being thrown. Cape Town is at present being blasted by a heavy storm and we expext the SW wind to come humping through here later this arvo bringing with it by morning hopefully, a chunk of swell. We don't expect anything near last year's heavy conditions but we could be in the 4' – 5' range.  But for those out of this event already there is a mad scramble to get down to J Bay as there are cooking waves at the moment and with the storm already hitting Supers there are predictions for 6.5m of swell for the first half of next week to get the Billabong Pro moving. The guys are amping!

Ain't life great Nick? (the view from his room where he relaxes
after a day commentating at the Ballito Pro in South Africa)

So all of us are making the most of our stop-start-stop days and today we have all scored a few waves. I'm tapping this in after my 3rd session and need a siesta in the muggy calm-before-the-storm. Tonite is the Oakley One Wave Wonder awards evening at Zimbithi Golf Club with the winner getting £4000 for the wave voted best in an online poll, while the videographer will walk away with an all expenses paid trip for two to Indo! Ain't life sweet?

That's it for today


Nick

Day 2 summary from Nick Williams at the Ballito Pro

Day two saw us get thru nine heats before both onshore winds and a filling tide closed us down early. We had hoped for at least 12 heats  - the halfway point of the round of 96 but competitors and surfers alike were struggling in their respective jobs. Today was however a fun day on the tower for the contest to get moving for real and altho' the waves were head-high, their were plenty of excellent category scores coming from the judges.

Defending Champ Pat Gadauskas, Royden Bryson, Nic Muscroft with Contest Director Colin Fitch

Standout performance of the day was Bernado Miranda from Brazil  winning in the same heat as the shock destuction and subsequent elimination of Brett Simpson. It coincided with the continued deterioration of conditions and the event only continued for one more heat, finishing with one more stellar performance of advancies, Torrey Meister from Hawaii ahead of an on-fire Jadson Andre from Brazil, in heat 9. 


So with the defending Mr Price Pro Champion Pat Gadauskus coming up next the courtesy of getting agreement from all surfers was extended and altho Pat was okay to get out there, it waas otherwise agreed that with the possibility of running maybe only one or two more heats before it was certain to be called off, it was no loss to stop a couple heats early.

What that means for us guys is that we now have a 7am local time call for start of the next heat featuring alongside of Pat Gadauskas, we have Quiver rider Nic Muscroft, South Africa's Royden Bryson and Eric Geiselman from the USA. It's an early one (06:00 UK time) for the factory crew to tune in and it is so because of Wednesday being the worst of the week's prediction surf-wise.

Tonite is braai night for the officials at local judge and surfboard manufacturer Jonno Hutchinson's porzie, just up the lane from the contest site and it is an annual look-forward-to evening of mellow hospitality of the highest degree in their beautiful garden around the pool. As it's for the ASP crew it won't be a late one but dynamite comes in small packages, so it's bound to be a good one.Catch up tomorrowNick

x

First day at the 'office'

First day at the office

Tiago Pires talking to Head Judge Richie Porter and Contest Director Colin Fitch 

The trip out of Newquay started simply enough  - train up to Paddington and then out to Heathrow and check-in was straightforward, but then, with a Turban clearly too tight and, therefore constricting brain function, the gentleman at zone Y for oversize baggage tried to feed Nic Muscroft's two new contest boards through the conveyor scanner SIDEWAYS! Not a great idea in my mind and so he got a piece of it for free. Then, slightly rattled after the attempt to try fold them in half, I forgot to take a couple yoghurts out of my Laptop bag when going thru' security and was pulled aside. 

This allowed the staff further opportunity and a swab of my bag set off alarms and I was taken aside for anti-terrorist police to quietly come over to perform further swab tests and again the alarm was awakened. “We  have established extensive chemical traces in your bag Sir!”, so off we walked for a little chat to establish exactly who I was and what I do. It didn't take long for them to be satisfied that I had taken my computer in to work for Pani to have a look at and that in the laminating bay at Quiver my bag had absorbed a large dose of resin, epoxy, acetone, catalyst, styrene, xylene and accelerator W and so the machine thought it had hit the jackpot and had been trying to pay me out. At last I was through and onto the flight.

Arriving in Ballito, Nic came over and we talked shop for a while. He was really stoked to be back in South Africa, taking hold of his new boards and I headed off into the country to catch up with family for the rest of the weekend before returning to the Boathouse – the ASP base for the Mr Price Pro.

Monday morning we were up at 5:30 to get our brekko down and headed across the little beachfront town to the contest location to run three trials heats to find 2 wildcards to get into the opening round of the main event. Those two were Michael February aka”M-Feb”, the SA Pro Junior #1 and former WCT surfer Davey Weare. The surf was only 3' - 4' with a light crosshore wind blowing but it was eventually decided that although the conditions are looking a little sketchy for later in the week, we would still call the contest off for the day as the judges were struggling to find scores above 7's. 

The call is a three-way affair of agreement between the surfer's rep, the Contest Director and the Head Judge. So it was a quick first day for us to get the contest going, but here we are, ready to start the Round of 96 tomorrow morning at 07:15 local time – one hour ahead of UK time. There is a live webcast available on www.mrpricepro.com as well as loads of other info you may like to see but I will try to give you a bit of an inside angle each day – no promises though as Africa is a wild place where anything can, and does happen.

To Nick M from Nick W

Our master laminator, Nick Williams handed over our 2 boards for Nic Muscroft back in S.A this weekend.  Nick W's packing did the treat with no dings or damage in sight.  Nice work Nick!!  Now, we just can't wait to watch them in action in the comps.