It was big; 8-12 feet. Not epic north shore big. But big enough. Plus this is Sunset Beach; where even on small days the rip can take you out to sea in a split second if you don't know what you are doing or right back out to the line up if you do. It was cleaner than the previous day but still warbly and bumpy with side shore winds. Every once in a while some bombs (15 to 20 feet by my reckoning) would show up and plow through the line up.
No takers.
Four finalists; John Florence (Hawaii), Adam Melling (Austrialia), Michel Bourez (Tahiti) and Hank Gaskell (Hawaii) had all made it through 4 days of intense heats and sometimes sketchy conditions. John was very relaxed and truly looked like he was having fun. Adam and Michel were power surfers, throwing down some powerful moves and taking some incredible beatings and kept on ticking. Hank (as he said on the stand after the event) was just glad to be surfing at Sunset with just 3 other guys; anything else would just be the frosting on the cake.
Check out some of their waves:
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| First up, Hank Gaskell |
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| John Florence rips one off the top |
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| Adam Melling lip bash |
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| Michel Bourez cut back |
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| Adam cranks back into the oncoming face |
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| Michel sets up for... |
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| this! |
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| John follows up with a cover up of his own |
Now for some of the barrels of the heat:
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| John starts off with this incredible barrel on the west bowl (6 wave sequence) |
Michel comes right back with this:
Hank in the green room.
Michel comes up with this incredible wave that covers him up twice; makes the first one but gets pinched on the second (7 wave sequence):
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| John then drives right into this |
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| Adam charges into this smoking, frothing barrel and makes it out the other end (6 wave sequence) |
Quietly on the hunt, with 2 minutes left, John drops into the wave that puts it out of reach for everyone else.
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| To the west, Kammie Land. Check out the rip and boil in the foreground. Yikes! |
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John wins first, Michel gets second, Adam third and Hank brings home fourth.
All photos copyright Gary Erbeck
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It was big; 8-12 feet. Not epic north shore big. But big enough. Plus this is Sunset Beach; where even on small days the rip can take you out to sea in a split second if you don't know what you are doing or right back out to the line up if you do. It was cleaner than the previous day but still warbly and bumpy with side shore winds. Every once in a while some bombs (15 to 20 feet by my reckoning) would show up and plow through the line up. No takers.
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