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WAVE RAVE #5 | By Kelly Ryan | Summer 2010
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Damon Gunness had a memorable baptism by fire a couple of swells ago with his first shot at serious tow surfing at a crazy reef off the coast. Damon’s ride of the biggest wave of the session landed him the cover of New Zealand Surfing Magazine. He must be now wondering if he can still draw some excitement from 3-foot Wainui waves. The group of well-known New Zealand surfers set off on a mission to find a wave fishermen talked about. On a hunch and a truckload of pioneering spirit they headed into the unknown and discovered a slab of rock out in the ocean that creates rideable monster waves – right on our continental shelf door step.
We have had an interesting spring with weather conditions ranging from summer-like swelter to wild winter temperatures, often within one day. I haven’t seen smoke pouring from neighbor’s chimneys so regularly throughout October and November for many years.
The cold snaps had me thankful for the extra stash of firewood I had tucked away in the woodshed. Needless to say the regular wind switches to the south have kept our beaches alive and pulsating with plenty of springtime swell. The sand has also made a steady return to our beaches and its no secret how good the waves have been along the middle of our beach. Pines to Chalet has been pretty good over the last couple of months with nice sand bars being held in place by pockets of reef not yet entirely covered by sand.
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Charlie Brown. PHOTO BY TOM GRIMSON
The Gisborne Boardriders Club’s leading figures and committee members have been very busy over the last part of the winter through to spring organising grants and a paid coaching team to implement an intensive ten-week coaching course for young club members. Being hired to head the coaching is local ripper and former National Champion and New Zealand Representative James Fowel. James has used his knowledge and experience as a teacher and coach at a national level to design a full programme that will run the duration of school term four.
The course covers basic preparation for young competitive surfers, goal setting, mental preparation, filmed competition and free surfing sessions and a health component. The course also provides a pilates and fitness section with Fiona.
There are around thirty young local club members enrolled and participating. The surfers have been split into three groups Emerging, Advanced and Elite. Bodhi Whitaker is head coach for the Emerging group, I am coaching the Advanced group and James Fowel is in charge of the Elite group.
From what I’ve seen so far I can safely say that no coaching programme for surfers this well structured has ever been offered to our young surfers. The students seem to be responding well to the regular, structured lessons combined with practical sessions.
The O’Neil Sequence Surf Shop Pro bought many great surfers to our beaches over the weekend of the 7th and 8th of November and Saturday provided all competitors and spectators with great 2 to 3 foot waves with offshore winds at Red Bus, Makorori.
With many local surfers entered, the competition was exciting viewing as Gisborne’s older more experienced surfers went head to head with new local talent. Of course, the out of town surfers were certainly not there to merely make up the numbers and as conditions deteriorated on day two their ability to make something out of nothing was all important.
Che Whitaker, Morehu Roberts, Damon Gunness, Brent Rasby, James Fowell, Nathan Welch, Johnny Hicks, Blair Stewart and Maz Quinn were all local heat winners on day one, an impressive quota of local success. Morehu Roberts and Blair Stewart were top scorers on day one with two wave totals of 13.75 and 15.25 respectfully.
For some of our younger competitors like Jacob Kohn, 16 it was a great chance to get some valuable Open Men’s surfing experience. Kohn drew seasoned competitor Brent Rasby, Matthew Daniel and Chris O’Leary, all Gisborne surfers in the round of 64. Rasby was able to offer a few words of advice and encouragement pre heat before demonstrating the heat winning formula. Kohn was eliminated but the way this guy is going at the moment he probably took more from this loss than anyone else did over the weekend.
Sunday dawned with a snappy southerly on the water and this, combined with a diminishing swell made for much worse conditions. The event proceeded and most of the local contingent fell in the Quarters and Semis. Chris Malone was our only finalist and surfed very well to a credible second place finish. The event win went to a young Raglan surfer Billy Stairmand. Stairmand 20, was a former Raglan Surfing Academy student and surfs very fast – look out for him this season as he now leads the Export Gold Series. The next event is in Whangamata at the end of Januray. In the under-20 division a very young Adam Grimson and young Buck Woods both managed to finish 5th equal with the winner of the event Paco Divers from Sandy Bay.
Jayda Martin-Fitzharris performed well making the Open Women’s final and at 14 is doing well to make open finals.
On the weekend of November 14 the New Wave Primary School Championship provided an opportunity for New Zealand primary and intermediate aged surfers to compete in a professionally organised surfing event. The inclusion of championship and plate divisions allows the grommets to have a minimum of two surfs and compete against surfers of similar ability. The championship and plate system helps to develop the next tier of junior surfers of the future.
Testing conditions at The Pipe greeted what seemed like hundreds of grommets on day one. The incoming tide saw a dramatic increase in swell from two to three feet and then five feet by lunchtime. Stamina, paddling fitness and wave selection determined the progression of surfers through to the next round.
In the championship division local boy Korbin Hutchings (Gisborne Intermediate) made his mark on the event scoring 15.67 out of a possible 20 in his first heat then backing it up with a 13.0 in his 2nd heat to progress into the semi finals.
In the plate event George Busby impressed many with his efforts attempting to tackle the big waves out the back in his heat. With time running out he changed his plan and managed to get two scores and move through to the semi finals.
Dayna Story (Campion College) progressed and secured a place in the girls’ championship division semi finals a long with Millie Crewe.
Paige Penny (St Mary’s), Jasmine Smith (Gisborne Intermediate) Taylor Brown (Gisborne Intermediate), Samantha Wood (Campion College) Abby Falwasser-Logan (Campion College) were others that progressed through to the semi finals of the girls’ championship division.
Korbin Hutchings was the eventual winner of the boys’ championship division, a good town beach up-bringing obviously helping the young ripper who is now a Wainui resident.
Dayna Story managed to finish 3rd for Gisborne in the girls’ championship event but was a little disappointed with this result. After a flawless semi final performance 3rd was obviously not the goal for this focused and stylish young woman. Abby Falwasser-Logan from Gisborne came in 4th place behind Story.
Final results in the boys’ plate division were George Busby 1st, Leroy Shaw 2nd, Issiah Grace 3rd and Rangi Moore 4th. All these boys are local surfers. One Gisborne girl made, and won the girls’ plate final and that was Ruby Cave.
The 12th December is a date to keep free for the 2009 Primo Boardroom Summer Slam.
More of a festival of surfing than a competition and designed for all ages this event is a chance to spend the day at the beach with friends and family.
Those who were among the hundreds involved last year will tell you what an awesome day out it is. Surfing competitions, sausage sizzle, Primo giveaways, awesome prize packs, autograph sessions with Gisborne’s top surfers and the chance to test drive the latest shapes to come out of the Boardroom, see you there!
Finally, I want to wish all surfers preparing for the upcoming competition season the best of luck with their respective circuit competitions. In saying that it’s no secret that good competitive surfers create their own luck by being prepared, setting realistic goals and having the desire to win.
For all the free surfers, enjoy the empty waves when all the hotties leave for their competition weekends, spending nervous hours sitting in their cars waiting for their heats in often substandard conditions.
Adam Grimson finds perfection over the Wainui spring banks. PHOTO BY TOM GRIMSON
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