Top Seeds Advance On Day One

Monday morning dawned in Victoria Bay with a clear sky and a chilly off-shore breeze caressing the swell lines marching towards the coast. With most of the surfers still tucked up in bed the call was made by contest director, Tasha Mentasti to run the event on schedule with the first buzzer sounding at eight thirty. The swell had cleaned up overnight and the drop in ocean swell hardly registering as double over-head clean-up sets raked the point, with the average waves topping head-high.

NMMU’s Clinton Gravett led the charge into the surf with Kyle Myers (UCT), Marcelle Traub (SU) and Kurt Deinke (UKZN) making up the rest of the first heat. As defending champion Clinton was expected to win his heat, as did other top seeds: Josh Salie (UCT), Brendon Booth-Jones (SU) and Shawn Dennis (Varsity College).

Shawn proved that Varsity College deserve their remittance into the USSA surfing fold as he shredded the competition in his heat. The tide pushed all morning and the conditions became easier, with the chop and slide wash which blighted the early heats dissipating as the bay filled. UCT’s Phillip Visagie and Varsity College’s Scott Lefevre reaped the dividends of the fuller tide as they both won their heats.

The day was not without incident however. Justin Pringle of UKZN went over the falls backwards after attempting a floater and snapped his board. His team mates did eventually supply him with a loan board, but not after a lengthy discussion on the wisdom of lending a board to a known board breaker.

In the following heat Stellenbosch’s second seed Devon Ramages mistimed the jump and got washed down the point, shredding his hands and his bottom deck in the process. These incidents and the less frequent, but still heavy clean-up sets, must have played on the mind of contest director, Tasha. After consultation with the competitors of the fairer sex, she decided to postpone the ladies first round until Tuesday afternoon.

This meant that the men would have to surf their second round, as all the last placed surfers from round one got a second chance to make the third round. In the second round Aron Simmons and Nic van Wyngaardt in particular made the most of their second chances. Both had lost valuable time in the first round when they were caught inside by big sets and the repo-change round gave them the opportunity they needed to display their skills.

With the swell expected to drop but clean up more on Tuesday Round 3 is scheduled for a nine am start with Clinton Gravett once again in the first heat of the day. The ladies round one heats meanwhile, are scheduled to run after the men’s third round. With only five surfers being knocked out in day one, day two is set to be the day of competition casualties.

Click here to download the full men’s results so far and here to download the ladies schedule.