Jan Tredoux spanners for the surf in a heat during the '94 SA Closed Champs in Durban.

Newsletter 4 - 6 May 1996

1996 SA Closed Champs - Cape Town
This contest was held in Cape Town this year after an absence of more than ten years. April Fool's Day was dedicated to contestants from outside of C.T. generally making fools of themselves in C.T.'s unfamiliar breaks (See Cape Impressions) and to the Contest Briefing at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront Complex later that evening. About 100 waveski hopefuls plus family, friends and fans arrived at the briefing to hear what was planned for this year's contest. It seems more people arrived than was expected and the briefing was moved from the cramped lecture hall to the atrium outside. Judging by the profusion of team jackets, Natal, WP, Border and Boland were all fielding strong teams this year. EP only sent 8 members. They were Anton Van Schoor (Open), Hendri Kroukamp (Senior), Andr� Rossi (Senior), Gert Roux (Senior), Johan Momberg (Junior), Jurie Van Dyk (Junior), Rudi Joubert (Development & Junior) and Eugene Van Tonder (Development & Junior). Craig Seale and Nicholas Cadle had to withdraw at the last moment due to unforeseen circumstances. EP could have fielded a bigger and stronger team but it was felt that in fairness to all the members who made an effort to turn out for the required number of trials, we couldn't include people who hadn't attended trials. Namibia also sent three representatives on a fact finding trip to find out more about the sport. They are still riding production waveskis, so they were a little handicapped in the contest, but they were keenly interested in the sport, so I wouldn't be surprised if we see a bigger Namibian team next year. Brad James, SAWSA President, welcomed everyone and handed the briefing over to Karl Markwald, the WP Chairman. Karl delivered the first piece of bad news. Because of the uncustomary lack of surf prior to the contest the original promise by WP that the contest would be confined to the Kommetjie - Noordhoek area of C.T., had to be broken. 1996 SA Champs was given an unrestricted roving licence. There were mutters and grumbles but we had to accept it. There were even hints that the contest might be held at Koe�lbaai, out past Gordon's Bay. Mutters and grumbles more. Venues had to be confirmed each morning early by " answering machines" at three telephone numbers that the team managers had to contact. After this the ASRO (Association Of Surf Riding Officials) Chief Judge had his say and then the team managers were called together to take down the first round's heat flow. Second piece of bad news - the contest was to be run round-robin, not knockout as expected. The meeting was then adjourned and the competitors dispersed to sample the waterfront nightlife. DAY 1: (Round 1 - All Categories) Since Craig made me Team Manager, I was the poor kippy who had to get up at sparrow-poop to phone the venue number. The nearest working call office was about 2 km away. The venue? A place we had never heard of before called Derdesteen, out past Big Bay, Bloubergstrand. And here we were stuck in Noordhoek faced with a distance of about 50 km to cover in the shortest possible time. We hit the freeway only to be bogged down by C.T.'s peak hour traffic! Just before 9AM we finally found the place. Because of the delayed start time heat times were reduced to 15 mins. Weather was sunny, partly cloudy with a light SE wind blowing, which made it a generally cross-shore wind to the break. Surf looked deceptively small, but was actually running at 3 - 5 ft, with intermittent bigger sets. However this was the biggest the surf got the whole contest and actually decreased as the day progressed, so much so that the last couple of heats of the day actually had to be moved to Big Bay, to be completed. EP's fortunes were mixed on the first day. The Open and Senior Division riders had poor placings, while Johan Momberg won his heat. The Contest Director ruled later in the day that our Development riders were not allowed to compete in both the Development and Junior categories, so they opted to ride just Development. A wise choice since they did well in this category. DAY 2: (Round 2, All Categories) We thought that Day 2's venue would be moved closer to where we were staying but we were doomed to disappointment. Derdesteen, again! This time the wind was more onshore. 15 minute heats again and surf running at 2 - 4 ft and dropping. This was becoming depressing. By midday the venue had to be changed yet again and everyone moved to Melkbosstrand to complete the day's heats in bigger but onshore surf. EP's run of poor performance was repeated with Hendri Kroukamp, Gert Roux, Jurie Van Dyk and Anton Van Schoor achieving poor finishes and ending their quarter-final hopes. Andr� Rossi scored a fortunate 2nd in his heat and scraped through into the quarter-finals of the Senior Division. Johan Momberg once again won his heat and secured his quarter-final berth in the Juniors. Rudi Joubert, one of our development riders, did enough to secure his position in the Development semi-finals. The stage was now set for the final day. DAY 3: (Quarters, Semis & Finals) The venue? Derdesteen once again. This was becoming monotonous. We didn't even get a chance to settle at Derdesteen which had precious little surf, before the organisers decided to change the venue to Silwerstroom Strand! Silwerstroom Strand is a resort about 25km north of of the Koeberg Power Station. The break was on the outskirts of the resort with no amenities or services in close proximity. This was to be a big disadvantage later in the day. The competitors had to hike about 300m down the beach to the venue, where the surf size was a good 4 - 6 ft on the low tide. The surf dropped in size as the tide came in but not by much and developed a vicious beach dump on the steep beach shelf. This beach dump played havoc with the less experienced riders and many spectacular wipe-outs were seen, though damage to waveskis seemed to be minimal. We had visions of ripped out skeg-boxes and snapped skegs the way the riders were broadsiding their skis onto the beach but amazingly little damage was done. The Masters Division Semi-final was cancelled due to a lack of time and the Masters finalists were tabulated on their previous wave scores. The Seniors Division quarter-finals was re-organised and shortened by one heat for the same reason. The Ladies' Final ended tragically when Mandy Noffke of WP seriously injured her knee when she failed to bail out of the beach dump in time. I, personally, feel that the Ladies�, Cadet & Development heats should have been run at a venue with less aggressive surf, although I can understand that from the organisers point of view, they had no time to find an alternate venue. Unfortunately, the finals were being filmed by a TV crew, and this tragedy may have a negative impact on the sport. Be that as it may, this day delivered some thrilling surfing and unexpected upsets as Michael Orsmond, the current Open World Champion, was eliminated in the Open Semi-finals. He had some embarrasing questions to answer the TV crew, I reckon. Semi and Final results follow: DEVELOPMENT: Semi 1: J. Grobbler (1), R. Joubert (2), S. Dlamini (3), J. Mbonambi (4). Semi 2: C. Saaiman (1), A. Knott (2), C. Johnson (3), A. Maqashalala (4) Final: 1. J. Grobbler (Border) 2. C. Saaiman (Border) 3. R. Joubert (EP) 4. A. Knott (WP) CADETS: Final: 1. R. Le Roux (Border) 2. R. Griffith (Natal) 3. S. Nel (Boland) 4. M. Knott (WP) JUNIORS: Semi 1: M. Calitz (1), J. Momberg (2), J. Parry (3), J. Bester (4) Semi 2: M. Cowen (1), M. Ledger (2), K. Paauw (3), W. Young (4) Final: 1. M. Cowen (Border) 2. M. Calitz (Boland) 3. M. Ledger (WP) 4. J. Momberg (EP) VETERANS: Final: 1. P. Smuts (WP) 2. B. Markwald (WP) 3. H. Spreng (Natal) LADIES: Final: 1. T. Sassen (WP) 2. L. Le Roux (Border) 3. M. Noffke (WP) 4. M. Viaene (Border) MASTERS: Final: 1. W. Graser (WP) 2. D. Griffith (Natal) 3. K. Le Roux (Border) 4. K. Clements (Natal) SENIORS: Semi 1: P. Crous (1), B. James (2), C. Du Plessis (3) Semi 2: S. Hugo (1), C. Jones (2), K. Fahrenfort (3) Final: 1. C. Jones (WP) 2. S. Hugo (Border) 3. B. James (Natal) 4. P. Crous (Boland) OPEN: Semi 1: K. Markwald (1), M. Kendrick (2), D. Hammond (3), M. Orsmond (4) Semi 2: N. Carstens (1), G. Kendrick (2), J.P. Visser (3), J. Wykerd (4) Final: 1. M. Kendrick (WP) 2. G. Kendrick (Natal) 3. K. Markwald (WP) 4. N. Carstens (WP) TEAM RESULTS: 1. Border 2. WP 3. Natal 4. EP 5. Boland 6. Namibia

Cape Impressions
Whatever your conception of Cape Town is, if you go there to surf, make sure your petrol budget is loaded for bear. Travelling 100km a day in search of surf is not exceptional. We left to attend the SA Champs a couple of days ahead of time to try to familiarize ourselves with the Cape breaks. I realize now that we would have had to spend about 2 months in C.T. to achieve this. En route to C.T. we stopped at some other surf breaks, the most memorable being Buffalo Bay, between Knysna and Sedgefield. The point was rolling in some beautiful peeling 6ft waves that had us spending more than an hour at Buffalo Bay. Andr� Rossi damaged his already aging board by nose diving into some shallow rocks. Eugene Van Tonder, one of our novices, impressed by not letting the large surf put him off. Victoria Bay was unimpressively onshore and crowded, and Jeffery�s Bay did nothing to make us linger. We made a stop at Mossel Bay where Johan Momberg had a pleasant half hour at the local point break. On to Cape Town, via Du Toit�s Kloof Pass and Tunnel. Impressive. By the time we got to Paarl it was dark and Noordhoek was still about 150km away. Being unfamiliar with C.T. we arrived at the city centre with no way of knowing how to get to Noordhoek, so we just followed the road. When we found ourselves again we were doing the scenic route, at night, through Sea Point, Camps Bay, Hout Bay, Chapman�s Peak and - finally - Noordhoek. The next day we took a look at the Hoek, itself, but the SE wind was blasting down off Chapman�s Peak to make things very unpleasant and flat. We rode around looking for Kommetjie and Long Beach, but didn�t find it that day, so late that afternoon we surfed Noordhoek beach. The water was very cold and a strong wind didn�t help, either. On April Fool�s Day we decided to go look at other spots like Fish Hoek, Kalk Bay and Muizenberg, on the advice of a local surf shop owner. I think he was having us up for April Fools. The wind there was definitely onshore but there were surfable peaks. We stopped at a place called Danger Beach at Kalk Bay and watched some surfers and bodyboarders catching some good waves. We decided to ruin their day and join them. To get to them we had to cross a railway with regular traffic on it. We paddled out and joined them. It was then that Andr� Rossi got a shock as he caught his first wave. It was only after he was committed that he noticed that the wave sucked up off a very shallow rock ledge that covered just about the length of the where the waves were peaking. Only by staying high on the wave and bailing out when it was safe to do so did Andr� avoid having his ski modified. Well, we discovered that this break was no good to waveskiers and we got out as quickly and as safely as we could. Now we knew why it was called Danger Beach. Scratch Kalk Bay. We found Kommetjie and Long Beach that day, but both breaks were flat and Kommetjie was covered in kelp. The next day we left the contest venue early and decided to try Long Beach again and what a change! The surf had picked up to a gnarly, fast offshore 3 - 5 ft. We had a lot of fun here, and I took a couple of good photos. We left feeling better than when we were at the contest. The next day we again left the contest early and tried Long Beach again. No luck, it had flattened out again, but Noordhoek beach was actually looking good and we again had a lot of fun. Our surfing was made more interesting when we noticed a couple of topless tanners on the beach. In fact, some in our group, no names mentioned to protect the - uh - innocent, concentrated more on the tanners than the surf. This ended our surfari in C.T. In conclusion we all agreed that C.T. had some surf and holiday potential but to live there permanently was out. While the contest was not a success for us we did enjoy seeing new surf breaks and sights and added a few more names to the growing list of breaks that we have surfed.

Colibri Splash �96 Waveski Challenge
Once again Colibri Towels made a generous contribution to the second anniversary of this open competition. The contest was held over the Easter weekend to coincide with the P.E. Splash Festival and started off with a briefing, at 9am on the 6th April, at the Summerstrand Beacon. There were actually two contests run in one, the Open contest and the Novice contest. The contests were run on a knockout system with a winners and losers flows in both sections. Prizes on offer in the open section were R500 for the winner and R250, R150 and R100 for the subsequent runners-up. The Novice winner walked away with a Kolaski custom waveski kindly sponsored by Kolaski, East London. The runners-up received R100, R75 and R50, respectively. The first days heats were run at Black Bottom at Pollok Beach, on the incorrect assumption that the weatherman was correct in his forecast that the SW wind would come through an replace the SE wind that was blowing at the time. The wind didn�t change and the SE if anything actually freshened slightly. So the first day was held in sloppy 2 - 3 ft onshore conditions. Overnight the SW wind arrived and decided to make its presence felt by gusting between 10 and 20 knots. The second day�s heats were again run at Black Bottom, since Noordhoek had no ridable surf. Now the competitors had to ride 1 - 3 ft offshore surf. Conditions weren�t ideal but the competitors still managed to impress with their performance in the small surf. In the Novice final the two riders who stood the best chance of winning their contest, fluffed their chances of winning by riding more than the maximum number of waves permitted in a heat, and subsequently had to be penalized. Grant Kendrick won the Open final with the longest and best ride of the heat. Results follow: NOVICE: 1. Rudi Joubert (PE) 2. Michelle Viaene (EL) 3. C. Saaiman (EL) 4. Johan Grobbler (EL) OPEN: 1. Grant Kendrick (Durban) 2. Munro Kendrick (Cape Town) 3. Craig Seale (PE) 4. Nicholas Cadle (PE)

Border - E.P. Inter-provincial Contests
A series of three inter-provincial contests have been arranged between EP and Border. Three different venues have been chosen for each contest - East London, Port Alfred and PE. For each contest each province will field a 12 man Open team, 2 man Junior team and a 2 woman Ladies team. The dates are as follows: 8 - 9 June 1996 - East London 24 - 25 August 1996 - P.E. 9 - 10 November 1996 - Port Alfred To select an EP Team for these inter-provincial contests, a trial will be held on Sunday, 19 May 1996. Meet at the Summerstrand Beacon at 07h30. The Trial will begin at 08h00 sharp. Entrance Fee is R10 per entrant and late entries will be fined R10. We are appealing to all our lady waveskiers to enter, please, so that we can field a complete team at these contests. Border won the SA Team title and we need every able waveskier to take them on with a chance of winning. To this end a team practice will also be held a week after the Trial, on the 26 May 1996. The team members will be notified as to venue and time.

SA Closed Champs 1997
Eastern Province have been selected to host this contest next year. It is our intention to hold the contest in Jeffery�s Bay. This, however, may not be possible due to the J-Bay Surfrider�s Association policy of only allowing professional surf contests to be held at any of the J-Bay venues. Failing a J-Bay venue, we are considering holding the event at Seal Point in St. Francis Bay. To this end it is probable that most of the EP Trials to select our EP Team will be held at Seal Point. I am appealing to all our EP waveskiers, be they EPWA members or not, to enrol with the association and attend trials so that we can field as complete a team as possible. So we are looking for people from Cadet through to Veteran to support us. 1997 is the year that EP takes the team title!!

EP Closed Champs 1996
A date has been set for this event for the 7 and 8 September 1996. Entrance fee and venue details will follow later, though EPWA are considering a venue outside of PE. Watch this space!

(Copyright - Eastern Province Waveski Association, 1998)