This year’s 11 event Samsung Galaxy Championship Tour is a carbon copy of 2014’s. The same events, in the same waves, at similar times. Which is what the WSL promised. The new owners have done an admirable job of completing one of their main goals, which was to create a consistent product. That stability, in the form of venues, events, webcast and even the commentary team has been checked off.
Now sure the Quik Pro was desperately unlucky. Its two week window was as flat as a witch’s tit. Of course the two weeks before the event, and pretty much since the event finished, the surf has been cooking.
The problem with the rather unfortunate and underwhelming start is that it is now followed by arguably the weakest, in terms of pure wave quality, three event leg of the tour. Bells, followed by Margaret River, followed by Rio, is hardly a ménage à trois that gets the nipples tweaked or the penis pumping.
Now I love the Rip Curl Pro at Bells. I love what the event stands for. I love the heritage and the drunken cold autumn energy of Torquay at Easter. I love sitting in the sport’s only real grandstand with passionate surfing fans, eating meat pies and talking about surfing. However despite my affection, Bells is still fat. And there’s no getting away from the second most used Bells cliche (after the natural amphitheatre) that Bells isn’t the best wave at Bells. That would be Winki, which due to geographical impracticalities is largely inaccessible for the competition.
The same could be said for Margaret River. I love Margies, the area being undoubtedly one of the great 30 mile stretches in world surfing. Unfortunately, the Main Break just happens to be one of the least exciting waves in that 30-mile stretch. It seems harsh to vilify a wave that holds 20 feet, but when the size and power is reflected by large, fat walls that neither really barrel or provide a whackable lip, it’s hard to get excited. And that’s knowing the tremendous impact the event has, its great competitive tradition and the incredible government support. But you still can’t polish a turd, as my mum always says. Chas Smith once quoted Dion Agius describing the wave as, “It usually cops all the swell so it is gigantic. Cops all the wind so it is gigantic and messy. Breaks halfway out to sea, breaks fat, and is surrounded by sharks. So it is a fat, messy gigantic wave surrounded by sharks and halfway out to sea.”
Of course Rio is neither fat, gigantic or surrounded by sharks. It is the exact opposite. A small, hollow closeout surrounded by G-strings. And I know Brazil is important, and I know we have a Brazilian world champion, and I know it’s easy to identify with small beachbreaks since that is what 98 per cent of most surfers surf. But that doesn’t make watching the world’s best surfers pull into four-foot closeouts, chasing 4.5s any more palatable.
So what’s the solution you ask? Better waves clearly. What about P-Pass for its throaty barrels. Keramas or Lakey Peak for their mix of perfection and performance. There’s Puerto Escondido for its big wave chops, or Anchor Point for some culturally different pointbreak action.
Now pulling world class waves out of my arse and telling the WSL to run multi-million dollar event there is a classic case of shooting fish in a barrel, when the barrel is a bucket and the fish are bluefin tuna. I won’t be the one trying to run a 18 million gigafuck webcast through a dial up ethernet in a third world country, or worse, trying to persuade someone to fit the bill. However the theory that a few more quality waves would add some real sense of wow factor to a tour is still valid. After all, this is a tour that everyone desperately wants to call the Dream Tour, but just quite can’t.
With Pipe, Teahupoo, Cloudbreak and Jeffrey’s Bay all on tour (the last two sponsored by the WSL themselves, let’s not forget), this is a World Tour that throws up destinations on most surfers’ bucket list. However the next three events could provide a counterpoint to these world class venues, and will have a big say in the world title race. I hope I’m wrong, I hope Bells is 10 foot and smoking (although the long range forecast already looks terrifyingly small), Margies is 15 foot and rattling and Rio is six foot and spitting. However I also hope the WSL have one eye on new destinations and trying to put the “dream” back into the tour.
