Welcome to the last Surf report for the 2017 year and just like every other year it doesn't normally end on a high note.
Sydney’s surfing conditions don't really let themselves to a good Summer pattern and this week we have been left with small swell with onshore winds-every year as the Sydney to Hobart starts we normally get smashed by a southerly that causes havoc with the fleet and the surf conditions.
Swellnet predicts this 2 ft peaky East ‘devil wind’ swell that is lapping onto our shores is here to stay,bumpy but workable.
I took todays ’pictures’ (used loosely) at the Alley where it is as good and as bad as everywhere else and Fishkiller has a new surfboard.
Winds will remain onshore throughout the period, slowly swinging anticlockwise -Expect moderate ENE Wednesday, NE Thursday and NNE Friday, and we week will also see a gradual freshening trend.
Friday should see the easing East swell replaced by a short range NE windswell. Quality won’t be high and facing beaches should pick up 2-3ft sets by the afternoon and into the weekend.
All the NSW professional surfing action gets underway from early January with the World Junior Championships at Kiama (Jan 4), followed by the Vissla NSW Pro Surf Series, The nudie Australian Boardriders Battle National Final, Surfest and the new Vissla Sydney Surf Pro.
The 2018 Carve Pro hits Maroubra Beach from 18 – 21 January before the Vissla Sydney Surf Pro, World Surf League (QS) event set to take place at Manly in early 2018 .
With 6,000 QS points up for grabs, some of the world’s best surfers will be in attendance as they look to kick off their 2018 campaign in style when the event gets underway from 24 February – 4 March.
“Being the second QS6,000 of the year and just prior to the start of the 2018 CT (at Snapper), we expect a red-hot field and we also look forward to introducing some exciting new elements to the event to showcase some of the creativity within the surfing community.” Vissla’s VP of Global Marketing Vince de la Pena said.
These comps are as close as local surfers get to good QS points so it will be a good chance to see the local boys have a go to start the year off with some solid results.
I don't know Connor’s movements but after his 13th place finish he is now the 4 th best ever ranked surfer from Cronulla and he reckons this year he can get Richard ‘Dog’ Marsh’s 8th place finish- to really beat these guys he does need to win a contest at some point, but as he told me “I'm not finished yet, and this year I will get him”-I hope he does.
Champions were crowned at fifth and final stop of the Rip Curl GromSearch presented by Flight Centre last week on the Sunshine Coast and Cronulla’s Jay Brown kept his junior career ticking over with a good third in 16 & Under Boy’s final.
Finally, the International Surfing Association (ISA) announced an agreement with the World Surf League (WSL) on the qualification principles for surfing in the Olympics Games in Tokyo 2020.
In principle, the agreement will see up to 18 of the 40 places at the Games reserved for WSL Championship Tour (CT) surfers (10 men and eight women), with the remaining 22 places determined at the 2019 and 2020 ISA World Surfing Games, the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, and a single slot (each for men and women) for the host nation (Japan).
Surfing was confirmed as an Olympic sport for Tokyo 2020 in 2016 after decades of campaigning by the ISA for the global development of surfing. Surfing will also be included in the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima. This campaign has been buoyed by the continued improvement in high-performance surfing and mainstream attention of the WSL Championship Tour.