Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Smith and February set to renew Ballito Pro rivalry with J-Bay round one date
ers practising, while hundreds of people lined the beach just to watch the world’s best surfers putting waves through the shredder during a normal day at the office.
Under normal circumstances, contest organisers would have banked a few rounds in the first few days - Thursday was also a contestable 3-4’ and fun if a little slow - to alleviate the more stressful calls that need to be made when the sands of time start to run out.
However, big storms are lining up in the Roaring Forties with the first hitting Cape Town tomorrow and moving up the coast, and the forecasts are calling for giant storm waves early next week. But I can’t quite see what the excitement is all about.
To me, the low pressure cells are moving along a very west-toeast storm track. I can’t quite see why the models are calling so much swell. Supers could be much smaller than everyone is glibly forecasting. Hopefully, I will be wrong, and conditions live up to the hype.
A second storm brings fierce winds on Monday and Tuesday after the first rainy front moves past tomorrow.
Trouble with those strong westerlies out to sea is that they can blow the swell past.
But let’s hope the sheer brute presence of so much ambient storm swell out to sea will see at least 4-6’ sets pushing onto the fabled point - this might be the mathematical correlation I am missing.
The forecast for Tuesday is for 10 or even 12 foot at Supers. That doesn’t seem right looking at the wind fetch in the originating storm.
Anyway, a third storm later next week creates a better swell direction (some time between Thursday and Saturday), which will probably enable the event to finish without too much panic.
Some tantalising matchups lie ahead after the WSL Commissioner’s office awarded February a wildcard to the event based on his 3rd place at the recent Ballito Pro, which was won by Smith. Staples got his wildcard via the JBU Super- trial.
A Cape St Francis resident, Staples is a giant-killer with enough local knowledge to topple big guns like another local Sean Holmes, who famously defeated Andy Irons three times here, once when Irons was reigning world champ.
In Heat 6 of Round One, Staples is up against World Champion John John Florence (HAW) and Brazilian rookie Ian Gouveia. Staples hasn’t too much to fear. In three meetings with the Hawaiian, he has come out on top every time.
Sadly, Smith and February will have a repeat of their semifinal in Ballito when they have to surf against each other in Round 1. It’s important to win the threeman Round 1 heat because you go straight through to Round 3, while the two losers are forced to surf in a knockout Round Two heat in a manon-man format.
The conspiracy theorists can relax though. The heats are decided according to seeding. It’s not a bias against South Africa.
Either way, let the games begin!
Freezing weather lies ahead this weekend with heavy rain from around 6pm today, pouring overnight into Sunday, with lows of around 4 degrees C. Messy 4-5’ surf runs today in strong NW winds, so Muizenberg should be okay - small 2’ but offshore at least. By tomorrow, proper 10’ swell hits the west coast, but winds are stiff southerly, which is not a great direction for both sides of the peninsula, creating cross or onshore conditions. Twitter @spike_wavescape