The first blog from Wini Paul, winner of Jim Beam’s ‘The Break’ competition.

Family portrait.

INTRO

This time last year, Snapper Rocks local Wini Paul, was just your average surfer – who happened to rip. That was until she took out the inaugural Jim Beam competition – ‘The Break’. Concept behind ‘The Break’ was simple; find two underdog Aussie surfers (Nick Squiers won the men) to send on the 2010 World Qualifying Series and then follow their progress. The final selection process was ran camp style on Stradbroke Island in Queensland. The surfer’s surfing, character, confidence, hunger and fitness all integral parts of the selection process.

So what now? Well, read on and find out what Wini’s been up to and how the win has affected her.

Hey everyone!

Welcome to 2011, I’m pretty sure this is going to be the best year yet would you agree? Well ever since winning Jim Beam Break, it has been. After finding out I won in January life has been pretty crazy and exciting.  I have just been trying to enjoy the whole experience including having like a million people come up to me and commenting on the whole thing. Firstly, they always say congrats, then if they are under 25 it’s “do you get free Jim Beam? How much?” or “can you hook us up with some free Jimmy or a promo girl?” It’s not until after this that I’ll get the whole “wow you get to travel the world and do comps, that’s sick, you’re so lucky”. I love how free product is the most exciting thing for some people ha ha! It has been really great having all these people chatting to me about it though, I didn’t realise so many people were tuned into the whole thing.

Straight after finding out I had won I headed home to NZ for just over a week. I wanted to just do a few contests for fun and also to see my friends and family.  The first comp was in Whangamata on the East Coast and I stayed with the lovely Spiers family. It was so refreshing being at home and catching up with everyone. The surf was sooooooo small, but lucky I had just gotten a new small wave board off Yoshi Takeda and it felt great which helped as I ended up coming 3^rd.

I had a melt down in the final, but it was cool cause I got a pic in the NZ herald and had a GREAT time dancing to dubstep at the after party. That was my first experience with dubstep, so I got a few tips from some pros and then I was on fire! Definitely the craziest, most hypo dancer there.

Fresh crays (these are the little ones) caught by the cuzzy’s, gutted and cleaned by me. Chur boys.

Then it was off to visit some more family and friends and a quick stop in Auckland to pick up a big load of Jim Beam product for my joint 21^st party before arriving at my beautiful home beach, Sandy Bay, where the Hyundai Sandy Bay Longboard Event was being held.  I hadn’t surfed a longboard for a solid two years, so it was fun having a few days of practice and hanging with the cool long boarders, they are so much fun and super chilled. It wasn’t long before I had invited everyone at the comp along to the party I was having with my cousin Conor as a late 21^st. We had the best set up for it in an old camping paddock. Had a fire going, a BBQ, fresh crayfish, smoked fish, salads, marshmallows, beers, sick music, a dance floor and of course some Jim Beam.

I was taking it pretty easy as I’d managed to make the final of the women’s the next day. But it was my 21^st after all, so a couple of Jimmy’s later and we all managed to dance till the wee hours of the morning with pretty much the whole local community. Plus, the contest crew was having the sickest of times at a good old school style party. People had an awesome time saying it was the best party that’s been held on the coast for years. We were so stoked that we’ve decided to make it an annual event to tie in with the contest. I ended up coming fourth in the contest and the whole thing was just good times with good people – such a fantastic way to start my year.

Since February I have been busy working at my lovely job at Beach Culture, yes still working, I heard it’s good for you. It helped keep me out of getting up to too much mischief during the Quicksilver Pro. I surfed in the trials event for that, but I took the wrong approach. I went out thinking it’s just another day at Snapper, be casual and just do what you would normally do, but I don’t normally get Snapper with only 3 people out, have hundreds of people on the beach watching or be the only person on the beach with a Jim Beam sticker on my board. I didn’t do very well at all, but it was great fun and I had nothing to lose. I did enjoy my first comp with a sticker on my board and that it was a cool sticker was even better.

Helping out my Local North Coast Boardriders BBQ. Thanks for the support guys! xo

After the Madness that was the Quiky Pro (parties every night and the crowded waves), I headed down to Newcastle for the first W.Q.S event. It didn’t start off well. I’d managed to hurt my back either from the four hour dance session at the staff after party, or the crazy Zumba booty shaking I did as my work out to burn off a few of the drinks. Either way, Matt Beautel at Currumbin Chiropractic had me nicely strapped up for the event, which was sweet as he’s the one who works on all the surfers and is dealing with surfing injuries all the time… obviously I didn’t tell him I had hurt it shaking my boot.

As well as the back injury, I ended up having a three-bedroom town house rented out with just my mum, which chewed into a big chunk of my travel money. I thought I would be sharing the accommodation with another surfer but after I booked it they told me they were staying somewhere else. But they said sorry after seeing I was pretty bummed and I think we both learnt from it, and I know it won’t happen again, which is great and obviously there are NO bad feelings.

I ended up doing okay in the comp, even when it seemed there were lots of things going against me, but I beat some girls I never had before and even though after every wave my legs would go numb with pain, I got some good scores and enough prize money to pay my phone bill for the rest of the year – very happy. Having my family there really helped as well. They make you feel comfortable and make life easier at the comp so all you need to do is focus on surfing (so much better than being solo). Figuring out that having support from even one person was great, I will make sure I have at least one person that makes me feel comfortable at the other comps where possible. I also enjoyed rocking the sparkly Jim Beam Bikini around the comp, it was good to add a bit of bling to the grey days down there.

– Wini