Well I would've had these shots out a couple of days ago but I was waiting for a response back from a website and unknown to me the main person is on holiday. It puts me in the spot of do I put them out myself or wait. I think i've waited long enough so here we are, some shots from the Subaru Pro in my backyard of Taranaki. I've tried to put a shot of everyone in here, my apologies to Sally for missing 2 of her heats and not getting the best shot of her.
Sally Fitzgibbons took her 2nd win in a row and deservedly so. Showing she was serious about wanting this event scoring an impressive 18.45 in the 1st round, continuing onto a score of 19 in round 3 getting a near perfect 9.75 in the process. The dropping tide on the Saturday gave for extremly testing conditions creating a horrendous rip just as Kiwi and Taranaki local Paige Hareb entered the water for her quarter final against Coco Ho. The rip so bad no waves were had in the first half of the heat causing the judges to call for a restart. Unfortunately for the local supporters Paige did not proceed any further but she definately did put up a good fight in the frustrating rip. Coco then got knocked out in her semi by event winner Sally Fitzgibbons.
Carissa Moore who was leading the ASP rankings up to this event came up against Fitzgibbons in the final, unfortunatley for Moore the waves just did not come her way. This event has set the stage for the rest of the season with only 50 points seperating Fitzgibbons and Moore. It was a fantastic event, the waves were a bit small but the surfing more than made up for it, hey at least it wasn't howling onshore and pissing down!
Here's my results...
-Tube of the comp went to Tyler Wright for her pre-comp barrel on a smoking right
Best floater - Paige Hareb on a bit of a sucky wave, I'm pretty sure she had a big grin after she made it
Best wave - Carrisa Moore taking apart a near 6ft wave
Best tail slide - Kiwi Sarah Mason for really pulling the tail around on nearly every turn
Cutback - Chelsea Hedges for a beautiful fluid cutback
Verticle hit goes to Stephanie Gilmore
Best Karate kick - Alana Blanchard during a warm up with good mate Laura Enever
Brightest wetsuit - the outrageous pink/orange suit of Laura Enever's
And last but not least, biggest smile goes to of course Sally Fitzgibbons
Alana Blanchard
Carissa Moore
Claire Bevilacqua
Coco Ho
Courtney Conlogue
Jessi Miley-Dyer
Melanie Bartels
Paige Hareb
Pauline Ado
Rebecca Woods
Rebecca Woods
Silvana Lima
Sofia Mulanovich
Tyler Wright
Cheers girls for an entertaining few days, it was an absolute pleasure and honor in photographing everyone. Good luck with the rest of the season and I hope yas score some pumping waves.
It was a windy day but the women surfed really well considering the conditions. A bit on the small side and cross offshore. Paige was surfing with dedication really ripping it apart, it showed in her scores as well, going on to win her heat. I wasn't expecting much seen it was so wwindy but I tell you what it was really entertaining surfing. It was great to watch and the spectactors lining the hill and beach were cheering and clapping them on. Everyone was getting sandblasted but no one seemed to care, we were all stoked to watch some quality surfing. I would write some more but i'm off to the pub...
Took a 1200km road trip to Gisborne at the weekend, I knew it wasn't going to pump but I just wanted to see what the set ups were like. I wasn't dissapointed as I saw some not bad waves, stoked. Also saw a few odd ball things, now cows all they do is eat, sleep and fart. When they're laying down they're still chewing the greenery, so I was quite suprised to see this mob below sunning themselves on the beach with not a patch of grass around them. Funny old day.
Shane Dorian paddled into possibly the biggest wave ever paddled into. Just looking at this footage freaks me out and then to top it off he pulls into a massive barrel on the last wave. We will see how big they say it is at the Billabong XXL awards, but I'm guessing it's more than 50ft...
Took a bit of a tiki tour at the weekend...along with 500 other surfers. Raglan was pretty wedged, you couldn't even get a car park at Manu or Whale bay! I was stoked myself as this was only the 2nd time I've ever been to Raglan and this time it was pumping. Staying in the local caravan park there was feck all sleep had with some nut bag coming home drunk screaming and crying her boyfriend dumped her, woke everyone up and continued for 3 hours, I'd dump her too! Althou it allowed me to be up at the crack of dawn checking out the bay. When you first round the corner the waves take your breath away, then as you look around you notice more and more multi million dollar houses. You can't but wonder if they have surfing in there blood or they just like the view of all the beat up cars crammimg up the roads.
Seeing that everyone seemed to be focused on the points I decided to extend my travels a bit more on the way home and found a huge left at the bottom of a valley, and an Indo looking left and right, sweet days work.
Stoked
Been a while since I last did a blog on my own surfing photos, since Hawaii! A little swell crept in from Tropical cyclone Atu last week, unfortuantely I didn't get to where I wanted to explore but ended up on a long stretch of strand. Yes I said strand, I know I am in NZ but Ireland still is in my heart. Anyway just a few beach shots from Atu in the land of the long white cloud.
This is what's been going down the last few days, unfortunately i'm not there but thank the webster for youtube and facebook to keep me sorta sane, will add clips as more comes in the coming days. Some pretty amazing surfing went down at the 1st towin comp in Ireland organised by Paul O'Kane in junction with The Irish Tow Surf Rescue Club and sponsored by Billabong and Monster energy at Mullaghmore. Paul did an amazing job putting a lot of this together, if it wasn't for Paul this would not have happened this year so a big thank you to him. Even though I wasn't there on behalf of everyone I would like to thank the RNLI from Bundoran and Sligo, The Irish Tow Rescue Club, Billabong, Monster Energy, which ever council gave the ok which I think might've been Sligo to run the comp and The Pier Head hotel at Mullaghmore. It sounded like an epic day. Apararently there was hundreds of people watching the comp, great turn out and support for the extreme sports people. Bring on next year...
Results:
1st. Eric Rebiere/Benjamin Sanchis
2nd. Peter Conroy/Glynn ...
3rd. Andrew Cotton/Al Mennie
4th. Gabe Davies/Richie Fitzgerald
Gabe also got best Barrel, it's in the clip below at around 28sec in, Richie also got most gnarliest wipeout
This the latest clip is pretty wicked, it's good to see a few camera people putting there heads together to do a pretty cool clip and using there imagination. Keep an eye out for a documentary maybe later this year by these talented videographers. 4 different angles. The water angle is sooo close to the action that it makes me fell like a scardy cat not being closer myself in the sessions before. Big congrats to Peter Martin, Peter Clyne, Dave Mottershead and Daniela Gross. Well dones guys, cool bananas
