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RIP CURL PRO SEARCH: DAY THREE
Supertubes contest site washes away while Taylor + Mick tow new, chunky wave as big Atlantic swell fills in
It's here. The purple blob that was swirling around the Internet translated to a dull roar this morning. "Sounds like traffic," says photog Rowland as we start heading towards the Supertubes contest site. Thing is, apart from a couple fishermen on those funny little three-wheeled motorcycle dealios, there is nothing on the road.
The surf is booming out front. Biggest swell in Portugal in 12 or 30 years, depending on who you talk to, and way bigger than the Tour's seen in Europe this year. The morning buzz is that the Supertubes contest site "washed away" overnight. Which is pretty rare; last time something close to this happened was a few years back at the Billabong Pro Tahiti when the scaffolding washed away.
By the time we get to the site, it's not really raining anymore, though there's gray sheets of water looming a couple miles offshore. This is where the traffic is: a half dozen big bulldozers are moving tons of sand around, attempting fruitlessly to protect the trashed contest site. It's a mess. "Washed away" may be a little exaggeration -- the judges tower is still standing, for example -- but overnight, the Atlantic washed through the whole thing and up to the dunes, taking windows, tables, chairs, monitors, in the process. The mayor and half the town of Peniche is on hand trying to salvage anything worth salvaging. One helper is pulling a soaking wet monitor out of the sand, and says, "This is Portugal; we fix everything here."
After chatting with the mayor, Antonio Jose Correia, for a while -- super nice guy, by the way, who almost gets run over by an overly aggressive bulldozer during our conversation -- it's clear that this event really does mean a lot to the local community. "They tried to build a deepwater harbor here at Supertubes once," he tells me. "But I said, 'no way! The wave is too important. We MUST respect the wave.'" He's got a salt-and-pepper beard and an infectious smile, despite the fact that the damn bulldozers almost keep running him over while he's making his points and the event site is being dismantled all around him.
The 8am call turns into a 1:30pm call at the backup venue of Lagido (surprise!), and we wander down the beach to the right jetty wedge down the beach from Supertubes called Molho Leste, where Parko, the Hobgoods, Adriano, Tim Boal, Ben Dunn are laying into the super rippable bounce waves. In case anyone is wondering, Parko's ankle looks damn fine, and Luke Egan is standing and watching over his keep and smiling. Parko spent a while in Capbreton in a super fancy sports rehab facility and seems as ready as he'll ever be to snatch some momentum back from Fanning.
Mick, for his part, is having none of the small-wave super session at the jetty. Him and Taylor have the skis gassed up and spend the morning towing into a rarely surfed 10-foot righthander off the little island of Baleal, just north of town, on the backside of the Lagido contest site. It's not Shipstern's Bluff or Maverick's or anything, but it's certainly enough to assemble a serious crowd on the bluff, TV cameras, curious fishermen, etc, and it's enough to get the boys' adrenalin going.
"Yeah, I'm getting ready for my heat by towing into 10-foot waves," Taylor laughs afterwards when I ask him if this is some kind of new, secret strategy for the contest. "My first wave was a doozy; it was a big, huge barrel, and getting cleaned up afterward ... I haven't been cleaned up like that since Hawaii last winter. It really got my heart going."
A crowd assembles at Lagido for the 1:30pm call, looking out at the rolling, double overhead semi-closeouts. The wind can't make up its mind, swinging from SW to NW and then straight W within the hour. But seeing as this is the biggest surf the Euro leg has seen, it almost feels like they could get a few heats out of the way. It doesn't get dark till 7pm or so, and it's single elimination R1, so even a few hours of heats would knock serious time off the contest. But then it starts to piss down in wild sheets and get windier and it all of a sudden feels very much like a down day. Like, "everyone get back to your barracks and weather the rest of the storm and hope for some cleaning surf tomorrow."
And with a forecast that's calling for a few coming swells and better conditions over the weekend -- see below -- that's exactly what we're gonna do.
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Surfline's official Rip Curl Event Forecast, effective 10/21/09
--Kevin Wallis
BRIEF OVERVIEW: Major NW swell slams Peniche Wednesday and into Thursday, before fading into the weekend. Wind conditions will be challenging. More swell, and more favorable wind conditions for Supertubes, looks possible in the longer range.
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October 21, 2009
