What a day! With dead straight, close out/backwash conditions along the Pipe to Off The Wall stretch, courtesy of continued sand build up, the focus today was Sunset.

What a day! With dead straight close out/backwash conditions along the Pipe to Off-The-Wall stretch (courtesy of continued sand build up), the focus today was Sunset Beach. The 8-10ft swell was almost straight from the north, and while this is the main reason the sand keeps hanging in there at Pipe, Sunset tends to run like a huge right hand point break on this swell direction.

Carissa Moore Sunset Beach

The morning featured a few heats of the O’Neill World Cup, but around 11:30 the call was made to get the girls in the water, to hopefully crown the winner of the Gidget Pro. And didn’t the drama unfold from there! From the minute the call to run was made, the swell started pumping, and the biggest set of the day came through just before the first quarter-final hit the water.
Far from being fazed, the chicks proceeded to go out and blow up; the standard of their surfing right now is pretty outrageous, and the sight of hot looking ladies charging Sunset bombs is becoming pretty common. Alana Blanchard, Carissa Moore, Sally Fitzgibbons and Steph Gilmore all made big impressions, handling the 10ft sets like they were cups of coffee.

Alana Blanchard Sunset Beach.

As the day progressed, various world title scenarios emerged, with Steph’s chances seemingly growing stronger by the heat. When the other major contender, Brazilian Silvana Lima, went down in Quarter final 3, it was down to Steph and Hawaiian Coco Ho.

Steph Gilmore Sunset Beach.

Meanwhile Steph and Carissa kept progressing, with Carissa ironically benefitting from coaching by Steph’s Rip Curl stablemate, Pancho Sullivan.

Carissa.

Steph and the good news.

“My coaches (Hawaiian’s Pancho Sullivan and Myles Padaca) have been such a big help. Having Pancho out in the water as caddy was great,” she said.

One of the day’s highlights was Carissa’s radical free fall drop during her Semi final. Turning for what seemed like a nice 6-8 footer, she took off as the wave hit the reef and went into warp speed mode, the wave jacking and mutating into a 10 – 12 ft beast. The drop sent the beach crowd wild, and was perhaps the most definitive statement of Carissa’s career so far.

Steph earned her own applause during that same semi with a brilliant hack on the inside section, turning a so so wave into a 9 odd. Sally Fitzgibbons scored a 10 during the next Semi for a beautiful series of moves on a bomb, and well into the heat she and Alana had title contender Coco Ho comboed.

Towards the end of the heat, when the announcer calmly stated that if Coco didn’t advance, the title would be Steph’s, photographers and media converged on the competitors area, hunting Steph.

The lady of the moment, headphones on, psyching up for the final, and totally oblivious to the scene going on around her, eventually looked up to see about 50 photographers stalking her. That must have been a clue, and right on cue the final 10 seconds were counted down . . . and boom – Steph’s third consecutive World Title was in the bag.

Carissa and Panch / Steph and cup / Steph and cup-cocktail.

“It’s surreal to win for a third time; it’s amazing!,” she said. “I woke up this morning and knew it was going to be a good day. the waves were building and you sort of get that fuzzy feeling throughout the day.”

Carissa smoked the final to take the contest win, and Steph was grinning so hard she ended up with lock jaw, a condition she treated by partying until dawn. Being a consumate pro and a workaholic, I made sure I was there to cover the celebrations. Just doing my job you see – gotta take the good days with bad, don’t ya? Congrats Miss Gilmore, nailed it again!

Steph shares the joy with her sister Whitney.

Words and photos: David Sparkes