“The sausage people are going under water!” Simon “Swilly” Williams shouts as the sky dumps buckets upon surfing’s most beloved contest of the year. Excitement for every phenomena is high as World Champions, local legends, and the Gold Coast’s bravest business owners huddle beneath tents at what has turned out to be the wettest Burleigh Single Fin Festival of its 28 years.
A hooded Tom Carroll stands against the grayscale of pork smoke, vape clouds, and Queensland summer storm clouds, picking up and putting down a collection of yellowed single fins to choose from for his upcoming Masters heat. He sifts the weight under his arm. Slides his hands over the rails. Some of these will be water-logged garage sale dropouts. But at least one of them will be the unarchived ticket to a Stubbies throwback and a Gage Roads-soaked glory.
The rules are: six person heats, no priority, singlet rashies, one fin, nothing shaped post-1985. You don’t have to drink but have to be ready to be doused in something carbonated. “No beer on the grommets, please!” Terry ‘Tappa’ Teece warns on the microphone.
The event is a homage to the most classic, most core, most iconic sentiments of surfing—the true tenets of a culture that grew alongside the first Billabong board short tin shack in Burleigh in 1973. It’s reminiscent of the Stubbies Classic, which ran here from 1977 to 1988 and was of equivalent prestige to winning a CT.
Saturday:
“This is the contest that everyone wishes all the other contests were like,” Parko tells me mid-morning. He then says that he’s not sure yet which board he’s going to ride—some will say this is just psychological strategy talking. Parko has won the event twice and rumor has it he has been training all year for his third win. Some competitors are here for the party; others in the mix have the competitive disposition that can create a World Champion.
“Oh yeah he’s got a whole wellness center at his house,” Dimity Stoyle tells me as I investigate the Parkinson case, just after I’ve checked in on the sausage people. “Ice bath, sauna, the whole thing. He’s been keeping fit.” Dingo Morrison gives me a laugh and a cryptic eyebrow raise, which is enough to suggest we’re onto something.
I check in with Ozzie Wright, who’s looking out to the sloppy thigh-high conditions. Surprisingly, this is the 2019 Uluwatu Single Fin Classic Champion’s first time in this event. He says something along the lines of he’ll be happy to ride anything, which I believe must be the mark of a truly seasoned artist, because Ozzie advances to the quarter finals.
The other 25% of the Goons of Doom is not as lucky in the opening rounds. Before his heat, Vaughan Blakey takes a swig of beer and confesses that he’s “just trying not to bring shame upon my family, friends, and home town.” He returns back to land with a giant welt of a blue bottle sting across his thigh.
It’s become apparent that with so many variables at play, I should really ask the judges what it takes to score high in a single fin event. But because they’re busy and because they’re more left-brained than the rest of this headland is behaving today, I decide to defer the question to self-proclaimed cosmic tree hugger, McKenzie Bowden. “Well, my brother Tane always does well in this event and I think it’s because he has a better jawline than me.”
The world is unfair but never more than it is to our friend shrouded in competitive mystery, Joel Parkinson. In his opening round, Parko gets knocked out on an interference. What’s even more mysterious is that it was, allegedly, on purpose.
The storm clouds keep rolling through as Saturday ends with a canceled band and everyone instead collects into the Burleigh Boardriders Club’s favourite watering hole, The Crab Pot.
Sunday:
The Gods have smote everyone who said yesterday that “we’ll do it tomorrow,” because today is raining even harder than the last and without even a momentary tease of sunshine. The swell, however, has picked up to playful head-high sets and we are even graced with a brief mid-morning glass-off.
And better yet, Tom Carroll is here to provide the Burleigh nostalgia that the weekend invites.
We look out across the rocks and Tom points at different landmarks, drawing a visual with his hands. “When I first competed here it was perfect,” he says. “The sandbar wrapped around the point and all the way down to where the old swimming pool was at the cove. You could ride the wave all the way down.”
The 1984 Stubbies Champion rode a single fin in his first competition here in 1977. With a pile of that board’s aged cousins sprawled around the grass behind us, Tom gives a rundown on the art of riding one: “You have to be more in touch with the power source of the wave. With a thruster you get spat out of it more. Single fin you have to time your take off differently. Not push the board too much, otherwise you’ll skid. Different way of working with the cycle of water to try to flow with it and not spin out of it.”
He means it when he says “it feels strange competing on one at first, but then it all comes back to you” — he wins the Masters heat amongst seven seasoned icons, with Margo in second and Occy in third.
Following him on the podium is Hunter Andersson winning the Junior’s, Alister Reginato for the Men’s, and Burleigh Boardrider’s own Ziggy Mackenzie for the Women’s. Lungi Slabb and Coco Cairns take home checks for Best Style. In an attempt to wrap up loose ends before the contest site disintegrates to mud, I spot Joel and make my way to ask him about his elusive strategies. It’s the first 30 second window of time when the rain has stopped. Just before the darkness comes to light, an impish surprise of mid-summer downpour slaps the sides of our faces and we all scatter in different directions. “This is a sign,” I think; some masters are meant to work in silence. Or at least we leave ourselves plenty to look forward to for next year.
