Baker’s monster ride ...
Durbanite makes Nazare final in massive 15m swells
THE first of the 10 regional qualifying tournaments of this year’s eighth annual SPAR KZN Schoolgirls Hockey Challenge is the Northern KZN Regional to be hosted by Sarel Cilliers High School in Glencoe next Saturday.
Defending champions and six-time winners of this region’s tournament, Ferrum High from Newcastle will no doubt be out in full force to retain the title against a highly competitive chasing bunch of nine schools led by one-time winners, Sarel Cilliers, making up two pools of five teams each playing 25-minute games on two fields. The top two teams in each pool advance to a semifinal format culminating in a final to determine the overall regional winners who will qualify to play in the Grand Finals at St Mary’s DSG in Durban on July 21 and 22.
Interest in this tournament, piloted in KZN, has extended to four other provinces: the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Free State and Gauteng with a total of 28 regionals tournaments played across the country. YACHT racing enthusiasts at the Point Yacht Club had a bustling last weekend with both dinghy and keeler racing in glorious competitive conditions, Day Two of the Holburn Class Championships in the Bay on the Saturday concluding with the long-haul race offshore Durban on the Sunday which was Day Two of the Sigma Series
A diminished fleet of only four Lasers joined forces with four Flying Fifteens for the Holburn Class Champs which saw Jan Larkens taking up where he left off on Day One and taking the win in the shortened one lap first of three races by a narrow margin from Rowen Clark.
But the KZN South Coaster had a disappointing second race after getting stranded on a sand bank and having to get off his dinghy to push start himself, and therefore earning himself a disqualification. The win went to Jerome McLoughlin with Clark again second and Richard Bate third but forced to retire with damage to his main sheet block.
Race Officer Kevin Bingham set a short, sharp sprint up the Maydon Wharf channel for the third and last race of the day with a one-way beat to the finish line set off the yacht mole.
Too eager Laser sailor Larkens jumped the gun by about a minute to get ahead of the rest of the fleet and ploughed his way up the channel before he realised his mistake so did not bother to cross the finish line which resulted in McLoughlin winning by 24 seconds from Clark who notched up his third second place for the day.
Veteran FF sailor Patrick Harris joined forces with his son Liam for the Flying Fifteens and took line honours in all three races of the Sigma Series with Rob Tarboton (Henley Midmar) and his son Andrew out from the UK pushing them hard for all three races.
The Harris pair won the first race from the Tarbotons by six seconds, the second race by 14 seconds and the third and last race by 29 seconds leaving the Tarbotons as runners-up.
There was also a tussle for third and fourth between Craig Campbell and crew member Nhlanhla Phakathi, and Campbell Alexander and crew member Jeremy Kriek.
Campbell and Phakathi took bronze in the first and second races with Alexander and Kriek finishing 48sec ahead of them in the third race but 26seconds behind the second placed Tarbotons.
AFTER featuring in the final at the Nazare Challenge last weekend, Grant “Twiggy” Baker’s decision to remain in Portugal paid off for the Durbanite as monster swells rocked the European coastline.
Swells in excess of 15 metres were on offer at Nazare and Baker was eager to be back in the line-up after securing fifth place in the six-man final of the Challenge.
“Nazaré is beautiful, with warm, welcoming people and a there’s great vibe about it,” said Baker of the picturesque fishing village that has global notoriety for the biggest wave ever being surfed off its coastline.
“I decided to stay, to get to know the area and the wave better, so I’m looking forward to testing myself at the wave’s maximum potential. It’s the biggest beach break in the world and I grew up surfing these types of waves in Durban so there’s no reason I can’t surf Nazare confidently.”
The WSL Big Wave Tour (BWT) has witnessed a changing of the guard over the past year with the next generation of big wave stand outs frequently filling the podium positions.
For Baker his challenge is no longer to dominate in the big waves, but also to stave off the competition from the younger generation.
“I was stoked to make the final against the top youngsters who excel in these type of surf conditions,” explained the reigning Big Wave World Champion.
“I’m normally known for doing well when the surf is at its biggest and heaviest, so it felt good to be in the final. But I would have liked to have gone further and win the whole thing!”
Baker currently sits in 13th place on the BWT rankings which sees four Hawaiians dominating the leaderboard with Billy Kemper in first place followed by Kai Lenny, Ian Walsh and Makua Rothman respectively.
The Big Wave Tour consists of just four events in Mexico, Hawaii, Portugal and California, but Baker’s title defence was dealt a severe blow when he narrowly missed his heat in the Pe’ahi Challenge in Hawaii last year.
Flight delays during his three-day trip to Maui resulted in him arriving just one hour late for his opening heat.
Despite the setback Baker still has high hopes of qualifying for the 2018/19 edition of the BWT.
“My goal before the Nazare Challenge was to re-qualify for the BWT by making the Top 10 in the world rankings. Unfortunately I missed out by one place as fourth place would have given me a 10th place on the rankings.
“Missing Hawaii due to travel delays from South Africa left me a little disappointed after coming so close.
“Saying that, I’ve had an excellent year free surfing and should re-qualify through the Overall Performance category at the WSL Big Wave Awards ceremony in April.
“So all is not lost and hopefully I will be there to continue to represent South Africa in 2018/19.”
The final event of the BWT is the Mavericks Challenge at Half Moon Bay, just south of San Francisco, and has until February 28 to run in supersized surf.
While contests have been running at Northern California’s premier big-wave break since 1999, it is the first time that the event will be part of the World Surf League, with six women and 24 men making up the field.
For now the African continent does not feature in the WSL’s line-up of big wave events and Baker is scouting high and low to find a suitable venue in Africa to ensure the next generation of South Africans can follow in his footsteps.
“I feel it’s time to start exploring outside what we already have in South Africa and to try and find the next ‘Mavericks’ or ‘Jaws’ along Africa’s coastline. That way we can have our own Big Wave Tour event on the African continent and see more of our surfers on the Big Wave Tour.”