ON WEDNESDAY evening, inspired by some of the day’s wavepool perfection over at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch, I tried to put what I had just seen into practice on a few chunky Wainui right-handers.
I am no Filipe Toledo, and barely made it around a single crumbling section as the waves reeled off in front of my sluggish frame.
The next morning I returned, hoping for some fun. Overhead, peaky A-frames as forecast, only to watch short-period mountains roll through, steamrolling a couple of desperados several hundred metres offshore.
Both of those experiences could not have been further from the perfection that went down at the World Surf League’s “pool party”.
It is what every surfer dreams of when they sleep, hopes for as they drive through the night to a new surf spot, and expects after travelling for days to reach a remote Indonesian coral atoll.
The reality is we rarely find it. Yet there it was, several hundred kilometres inland, in a pool of water fed by a well, driven by a train-like carriage and powered by the sun (I guess that’s natural, right?)
Toledo summed it up when he said the wave was “like the waves you draw in your school books”.
All day on Tuesday, social media accounts of the world’s surfing elite tortuously drip-fed footage of flawless surfing in even more flawless waves.
The who’s who of world surfing were there, too. You have to feel for those who just missed the cut — according to Tracks, the WSL sent them consoling emails.
Glued to Instagram feedsI think it is fair to say most social-media-connected surfers would have been glued to their Instagram feeds, office-bound souls like me muting their yelps at Kelly Slater’s “comeback” wave, John John’s triple-barrel with intervening searing hacks, that stupidly big alley-oop by Toledo, or Steph Gilmour, who out-styled them all.
Yes, it looked mind-blowingly fun, but it also left many more questions unanswered than answered.
How much better can the wave get? Is this sterile environment really the future of competitive surfing? And most importantly, where was my invite?
Apart from the wetsuits, waves and sticker-laden fibreglass, there was little on scene to indicate surfing culture.
A picture of Courtney Conlogue clutching a triple-XL Starbucks-style latte, or of Slater relaxing in a hot tub, could easily have been shot at any elite location of the rich and famous.
“The competitors’ areas at comps provide status and a degree of luxury, but The Surf Ranch takes the exclusive, WSL country-club vibe to new levels,” Tracks magazine editor Luke Kennedy said in an opinion piece.
I don’t really have an objection to wave pools being used in competitive environments.
It is no secret the world’s top professional surfers have it good already and are paid megabucks.
If they already get paid to spend 10 days on a tropical island with their every need met, surfing the world’s best left-hander then how is this really any different in terms of luxury?
As a viewer (I’ll be honest, I don’t see myself qualifying for the CT, yet) I find the potential to see those ridiculously elastic, fearless, top-level competitive surfers unleash on a custom-built canvas pretty exciting.
Snowboard-halfpipe-style tricks are not out of the equation, at least once they have got over the fear of being the first to fall over.
And how awesome would it have been if this was the back-up venue at Trestles, instead of the days spent grovelling in knee-high slop (or most Qualifying Series events)?
Purely for entertainment value, I get it. But not for every competition.
The natural side of surfing — the unpredictability of catching a good wave, the sense that the wave of your life could be coming — that’s what separates it from all other sports.
True waterpeopleThe world’s best surfers are not only technically good, they are true waterpeople.
They can paddle out the back when it is terrifying, pick the right waves as a range of swell-angles collide, and absolutely charge.
Still, these past few days I probably would have liked an invite. Kelly, you know where to find me.
Either way, I would say those young surfers heading over to Japan this week for the ISA World Junior Surfing Championships might prefer a relocation to The Surf Ranch.
All of the Gisborne surfing community will be behind Saffi Vette, competing in her first world championships in the under-16 girls’ division.
The competition starts tomorrow and finishes on October 1.
It will take place at Okuragahama Beach, near Hyuga City, on the island of Kyushu.
Another of our surfers, Ricardo Christie, is in Europe waiting for the World Qualifying Series (QS) 10,000-point-rated EDP Billabong Pro Cascais 2017 in Portugal, beginning on September 26.
Christie is sitting in 15th place on the QS. He will need to finish the year in the top 10 to qualify for the elite 2018 Championship Tour.
On the local scene, the Gisborne Boardriders Club shortboard series is about to resume after a winter hiatus, with the New Wave competition No.7 to be run tomorrow.
New Wave Surfboards has sponsored the event and donated prizes.
It looks like plenty of waves will be around this weekend. The only variable will be the wind, although pockets of goodness should be around in the mornings and on Sunday.
See you out the back.