Benji blows up at Sunset
Cape Town surfer is building a Brand on the world stage
SOUTH Africans at international surfing competitions have been making their their mark in the early season world rankings.
Benji Brand of Cape Town dominated the line-up at Sunset Beach in Hawaii during the recent Sunset Open. Putting his many hours of local knowledge at one of the world’s most challenging surf breaks to good use, the soon to be 21year-old carved huge turns as he charged to the semi-finals before finishing fifth in the 112 man field.
At the other end of the scale, 16-year-old Sebastian Williams was competing in the first Qualifying Series (QS) event at the famous venue with its vast selection of difficult to read take-off spots and towering 3m – 5m wave faces.
Delivering an exciting repertoire of manoeuvres that impressed the judges, the Durban teenager ousted several local experts from the event on his way to the quarter-finals where his campaign ended with a well justified ninth place and the respect of all who watched him in action.
Staying in Hawaii, round one of the highly anticipated Volcom Pro in the hallowed waves of Pipeline was completed in testing three metre surf on Friday. Featuring the likes of 11-time world champion and defending event champion Kelly Slater and reigning WSL champion John Florence, who grew up right in front of the break, the event promises to deliver a feast of world class action before the spray settles and the 2017 winner is crowned.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, the SA crew posted mixed results in the back-to-back events on the Australian leg of the QS. No Saffas reached the last 32 in the tiny waves on tap for the Burleigh Pro last weekend, and Jody Maree of Cape Town is the only one to have won a heat in this weekend’s Telstra Tweed Heads Pro at time of writing.
Maree, who has been turning heads amongst the surfing cognoscenti down under since his fifth place result in the World Junior Championships in early January, produced another polished performance in his opening encounter to progress to round five where he joins his Jeffreys Bay based compatriots Matt McGillivray and Dylan Lightfoot.
Brand, who gets his challenge for Volcom Pro honours under way in round two, is cur rently the highest placed South African at No39 on the QS rankings. McGillivray holds down the 50th spot with Williams at 66th and the rest outside the top 100.
Kirsty McGillivray of Jeffreys Bay heads the SA women’s rankings in 91st place with Nicole Pallet of La Lucia at 111th, both after just one event. THE world’s big wave scene was rocked by the announcement that the organisers of the Titans of Mavericks event at Santa Cruz in California had placed their company in provisional liquidation earlier this week, making the running of the event unlikely for the foreseeable future.
Chris Bertish of Cape Town and Grant Twiggy Baker of Durban are previous winners of the most famous heavy water event on the United States mainland, which has been beset by internal squabbling over permits and funding that has seen the event change hands several times during the past decade.