There has been much written about wave pool and the philosophy behind it. We’re going to leave all that behind and dive right into the action on day 2.
Highlights and star performances day 2.
The waves: They might be different, small, and each one very similar to the one before, but the waves are so fucking desirable. Here at home we are experiencing a massive storm; our local beach is getting pummeled by a gale-force cross-shore wind and pouring rain, and it would make many people I know very happy to get a few at the Surf Ranch right now.
Lakey Peterson
Paddling into her first left-hander and bottom turning, it was very clear that Lakey was on a mission. She surfed that wave fast and with aggression, setting up a rhythm of powerful bottom turns and strong hooks off the top. She also went into the end barrel section on the left- a very tricky part of the wave and possibly more technical than the barrel on the right, and came flying out with style. Her score of 9.23 was the highest scoring ride of the day up until that point and it was well deserved. Steph Gilmore soon equaled it, on a right-hander just a little while later however…
Steph Gilmore
She is made to surf perfect waves. Whether it is the perfection of Supertubes or small but the endless reeling Surf Ranch, Steph has intrinsic flow that perfectly suits flawless conditions. She finds the perfect line and tiny adjustments in stance and trim allows her to make long and difficult sections with relative ease. She’s a pleasure to watch, and without wishing to detract from the performances of Carissa Moore or Caroline Marks, who both ended up above her along with Peterson, Steph had the magic, and could easily add to her number one ranking on the Jeep Leaderboard with a win at Surf Ranch.
Conner Coffin
“Conner packs a punch!” – Martin Potter.
Underneath it all, the Surf Ranch is a point break, pretty much, and Coffin loves a point break, whether it be left or right. He too has the flow, and surfed his first wave with no glitches – smooth and clean with a lot of power and sick little backhand tube ride to finish off his first ride of the day. His first right was much of the same, with two long barrels, a sick layback power gouge and two deep barrels without a flaw to show his style and rail game.
Kanoa Igarashi
The Japanese surfer is the perfect – sized surfer for The Ranch, and he proved this by banking an 8.93 right. A huge forehand air reverse on the outside, dropping straight into a long tube, as well a combination of moves back-to-back along with a smooth and fast style throughout. Igarashi was one of the most exciting surfers of the day, knowing that sixes are worthless, and the only way to get a result is to throw it all on the line, with no advantage of playing it safe. The score gave him a two-wave total of 15.73 and taking the number one slot from the Goat.
Griffin Colapinto
It became blatant about half-way through the men’s runs that the judges weren’t in any way interested in a multiples run of moves as demonstrated by the head-snapping Ace Buchan, yet no one was really going full-on to the air and going for the big air moves. Griffin arrived, and changed it up a bit, by going big but falling off on everything. Until a huge forehand air reverse that he nearly bogged, but instead wobbled a recovery to find himself staring down the vision of an inside tube that he made, to score an 8.87 and head on up the leader board to third place behind Slater. It seems the pressure was so high on the surfers that they chose to surf to the book, when the onus was totally on them going huge. GC showed the crew that a wave with a combination of radical top turns is worth the equivalent of a failed big air – fuckall. Do not play it safe!
“There so much pressure and I bogged the last three turns,” said Colapinto. “I just went for it, and for a second I thought ‘oh no, I’m going to fall,’ and then I was in the barrel.”
Lowlights:
Tube time
The amount of girls that became unstuck in the end section barrels. It was painful to watch at times, and keyboard warriors the world over were shouting, ’Speed up! It’s coming!” The girls didn’t hear, and the majority of end section barrels were blown. Having said that, Seabass stated that it was hard to tell when the section was coming, there was no rock-boil etc. but the fact that perfect waves were getting wasted over and over was meh.
