NEWS KAYAKSURF.NET / OLD: WWST 2011 / Ocean Spirit Festival 2011 / 14th Report by Steve Farthing

Mundial de Waveski / Portugal Ocean Spirit / Report de Steve Farthing

RIP - Evidence of the Guillotine

Décimo quatro report de Steve Farthing! Um dia atribulado mas com excelentes scores pelo meio - foi assim o terceiro dia de competição.

One more report from Steve Farthing! It was a busy day but full of great scores - that's how it was the 3rd day of the WWST11 Occean Spirit. Check the report!

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Ocean Spirit on my mind
by Steve Farthing
Report 14

Got down to the beach today and the surf was heavy, 10ft faces smashing into the sand and the guillotine was back! The call was made to send the first heat out at 8am. An unlucky South African junior got absolutely smashed paddling out, lost his ski and was rescued with suspected rib injuries and was carted off to hospital…but he is OK. They certainly breed them tough in South Africa.

So the call was made to postpone the event until 10am when there some more water on the bare banks! The top 32 then got into it and whittled things down to the final 16 with some crazy radical surfing in some bloody tough conditions.

Next came some of the age divisions and I’m glad they didn’t throw the masters out again. Also the women’s repercharge was put out on high tide and man was it hard for some of the girls to come in through the massive shore break……in true Bay Watch style, Stefano Hasselhoff , sorry Berlotti came to the rescue.

Then the top 16 got their chance in the afternoon as the tide started to dredge out into the Atlantic again, talk about hard paddle out, I’ve never been so exhausted in my life. Some of the highlights of those heats would be Rees Duncan scoring a 9.65 on the biggest aerial I have ever seen in competition, one of the judges scored him a 10. Clement Gilbert put on a brave show but Rees was in another zone. Andre Burger also powered through his heat in solid form and comes up against Rees in the next round and this will probably be the heat of the event. Young Pablo also made the top 8 and in my eyes is looking like a potential finalist.

Waves are looking even bigger tomorrow; I hope I don’t have to go out, I hope they realize we still have 3 days left.

Ocean Spirit only just on my mind…………I need a beer.

Steve

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