Drop into pits of terror
THERE’S high anticipation around the forthcoming Red Bull Cape Fear event, which this year runs at the craziest of surf breaks known as Shipsterns in southern Tasmania.
The event has been on hold for the past month awaiting ideal conditions, and it almost ran just over a week ago on a large swell that unfortunately had bad wind conditions.
By my reckoning, this event will run during the next three weeks.
We get the same swells here on our Surf Coast as what the Shipstern event will run on, and this time of year, late October into early November is notoriously strong for a few runs of extra large swells.
And unlike midwinter, it is also a time of year when wind conditions favour big wave surfing.
The Red Bull event combines tow-in and paddle-in scoring. You can’t simply be towed into a massive wave to win this event, you also have to paddle into a massive wave and be scored. The winning tally of the hellmen chargers that will surf this event is calculated by their highest scoring tow wave plus their highest scoring paddle wave.
That makes perfect sense to me. Paddling into these monster waves is way more difficult than getting towed onto one.
The tow-in effect requires more guts than skill to catch such a wave, so tow-paddle is a super legitimate way to go.
The most interesting surfer in the field is definitely 21year-old Russell Bierke from Ulladulla on the NSW South Coast,
In April last year, Bierke nearly died in a big wave experience not too far from the Surf Coast here in Victoria — he was actually rescued on the day by 11 times world champion Kelly Slater.
That experience has not seemed to faze him at all — he’s still charging massive waves around the world and he’ll be a favourite to take the Red Bull event again.
Bierke has also been invited to compete on the WSL Big Wave Tour this season, meaning he’ll be called up when 40 feet plus swells arrive in Hawaii, US and Europe big wave locations.
Bierke is an incredible story and he’s a surfer to follow in the coming months. Cape Fear from Tasmania will be broadcast live and it’s a must-watch for all surfers.
Four-day surf forecast:
After an extended run of small and poor winds, we are back in business on the Surf Coast with clean winds and good waves as of today. Expect clean surf today and moderate swells on all the reefs.
These conditions will remain right through to Sunday, so there should be an abundance of surf for everyone.