Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Style and grace the key to success at Longboard champs
slots per team for men and women: two per team, plus a manager/coach.
To further emphasis a 50/50 split, two surfers are from Durban ( Sam Christianson and Christy Gilmour), and two are from Cape Town (Alfonso Peters and Roxy Davis). Manager Paul O’ Connell gives Cape Town the edge.
Yesterday, as part of the opening the surfers took part in a parade on the beach and the Sands of the World Ceremony, when they mixed sand from their country in a clear container to symbolise unity.
The forecast for the lefthand point of Riyue Bay today is 1-2’, brought in by windswell from easterly trade winds blowing down the coast of China in the South China Sea. Although weak and often quite soft, the waves bend around a headland and run along a sand bank down the pointbreak – ideal for longboarding.
Riyue Bay lies on the southeast coast of Hainan Island, which sits just off southern China to the west of Hong Kong and Macau. Looks like the swell will build nicely for the last two days of the event, on Wednesday and Thursday next week, when it could reach a solid four feet.
Sometimes groundswell appears from low pressure systems in the Pacific, particularly during typhoon season between May and October, with the swell pushing into the South China sea between Taiwan and the Philippines.
Of course, you don’t want too much swell for this event. The whole point in longboarding is to showcase a smooth combination of old and new school moves that need to be executed with artistic style and grace. Big grinding waves on a longboard can make the style and grace part difficult.
Longboarding was first held as an medal division at the 1988 ISA World Surfing Titles and continued as part of the ISA World Surfing Games until 2012.
Cape Town has an historic place in the inaugural standalone world championships for longboarding in 2013, which was held in much bigger waves at Huanchaco in Peru. That’s because Simone Robb from Kommetjie won gold in the Open Women’s division.
The official hashtags #ISAworlds and #ISAWLSC represent the championship on social media, and you can watch Team South Africa go for gold on the live stream on www.isaworlds.com although don’t forget that the venue is seven hours ahead of us.
You’ll have to pull an Internet dawn patrol to catch the action.
We look set for a busy cyclone season off the east coast this summer, with the second cyclone of 2018 Berguitta grinding away just south of Madagascar and spraying a solid groundswell towards the East Coast. Berguitta moved out from behind Madagascar late night and early this morning. She packs a central pressure of 988mb and sits about 1 000 miles east of Durban. A lot of swell will be hitting the KwaZulu-Natal coast this weekend, with the swell peaking in the Eastern Cape a bit later – early in the week – as the storm moves south into the Cape’s swell window.
Don’t forget the The Surf Outreach programme’s Summer Sounds fundraiser in Muizenberg today. For your R100 ticket (at quicket.co.za) enjoy a great atmosphere and live music and prizes, while contributing to the Outreach, which utilises surfing as a tool to change the lives of underprivileged children.
We have a pumping southeasterly today, with gusts to galeforce. Hunker down in the strong winds freezing water temperatures, though there is not too much reason to go surfing. It looks flat. Muizenberg looks 4-6’ but the surf is smeared ashore by a pumping onshore. Tomorrow, scattered showers and cooler weather with light to moderate N winds. Nice surf at Muizenberg, with lots of swell and clean offshore. Other side flat and freezing.