ISA WORLD TITLES

<><><><><><><><><>

WORLD TITLE REVIEW 2009

The World Kneelo title was held in the very picturesque town of Opunake situated on the North Island of New Zealand. I was there 10 years ago for the World Titles and had a fantastic time so I was chaffing at the bit to go back. The locals were welcoming everywhere we went and they were keen to have us back again in 2009.

This year there were competitors from Japan, USA, France, England, Ireland, Fiji, Canada, South America and of course Australia and New Zealand. There was a different feel to these World Titles with everybody showing a lot of nervous tension but keen for a big slice of the action.

The USA arrived en mass with 18 in tow, all kitted out in the red, white and blue. The Aussies were next in line for group size with probably the best chance of supplying the world champ, but New Zealand trumped the lot with a massive team of juniors, opens, with the biggest surprise of all being the women’s turnout. Murray Weir had done an incredible job of nurturing kneeboarding in New Zealand and there is no doubt New Zealand is producing great surfers, so in the next 10 years don’t be surprised if the World Titles is won by a Kiwi.

Craig Jacobs and his wife, Gail, flew over a week or so early to sample what NZ had to offer and planned to link up with the team a day before the start of the comp. I had arranged to link up with John Clingan, Rob Slater and Baden Smith in Sydney and fly over together.

We flew in to Wellington with Qantas and lets just say I’m not normally religious but I called on God at about 100 feet from the tarmac and asked him to make it a quick ending!!!! Fair dinkum it was like flying a little two seater egg beater through a force ten gale!!  When we got to about ten feet from touchdown the pilot just dropped her straight on the tarmac and pulled the ripcord. Poor Rob Slater, who was sitting beside me, bloody near tore the headrest off!! John Clingan (who flies planes for a living) said “Well he got out of that pretty well”. I turned to him and said “Got out of what?” John calmly patted me on the back and said with a smile, “Death”!!! But the pilot is not to blame Wellington is veeerrryyy windy folks!!

We cruised into the baggage collection area to pick up our bags and boards. We got to chatting to a local and explained to him we were here to surf to which he laughed out loud and said, “good luck, I hope you have a good wettie” and walked away chuckling to himself!! We all quickly huddled together and cried! That didn’t sound good we all said.  But we composed ourselves and headed for quarantine. The beagle did the rounds and we all came up cleaned except for one minor detail. We had put surfing on the form for reason of visit so we got our wetsuits cleaned and returned to us!! That was nice of them wasn’t it.

We picked up the hire car and headed north. We arrived in Opunake five hours later and booked into our accommodation. ‘Let’s have a beer’ rang out so we had a couple of beers and crashed for the night.

Friday arrived quicker that we thought but we all got up and did the surf check. The onshore wind was a bit rude but we all finished up having a surf on small onshore Opunake beach. Obviously we went down to the Surf Inn for a few refreshing ales afterwards!!

Saturday again seemed to sneak up quickly but we did our best to scrub up for the opening parade. It was great to see all the competitors together in one spot, with the locals turning out in large numbers to cheer us on. We all piled into the marquee for the opening ceremony with the local Maori people putting on a superb display of their culture and generosity, welcoming us back after ten years. Everybody retired to the front bar and with plenty of sideways looks, trying to suss out the competition.

Sunday arrived and the first day of the comp was underway at Opunake beach with the Juniors, Women and the Tag Team event to finish up the day. The talent on show was incredible and as I said before the girls were charging in the line-up. The two Aussie groms Kendal Lloyd and Shane Whitehouse charged into the finals for the Aussies. The Tag Team Event was a shit load of fun with the payouts between the teams coming thick and fast.  One of the funniest things you will ever see is a kneelo bolting back up the beach to tag his team mates, flipper’s going everywhere and sucking in some serious air!! There were a couple of blokes who had lunch earlier and were lucky not to heave it upon the beach.!

After a very restless sleep Monday dawned and the real nerves were well and truly kicking. The contest was at a right hand point break at 3 – 5 ft. The paddle across the rocks to get out kept everybody on their toes but most negotiated them well. Craig and myself were in the qualifying round to progress through to the major draw. Unfortunately Craigy, although catching some good waves couldn’t convert on the scoreboard and bowed out. I had a good first up surf and got a second place to progress through.

On Tuesday the contest was at the same spot, but neither of us were scheduled to surf. One thing that was very obvious was that Simon Farrer and Gavin Coleman were looking freakin sharp and the whole contest knew their work was cut out for them.

Wednesday was déjà vu again at the same contest site but the surf kicked to 6 ft with monster 7-8 ft sets closing out the arena so everybody had to suck in the big ones!!!

I surfed three times during the day and progressed until the quarters and got a third  which placed me equal 18^th in the open…Yehaa!! I slept well….Wednesday night the nerves were gone??? Maybe!?!

Thursday rose to another great day, same surf spot and 3-5 ft surf. Craigy and I were both up for our age divisions. Craig was pumped to kick some ass so we hatched a plan!! There was no plan B but we were confident plan A was a winner!! It was a predominant right hander but there were some smokin’ little lefts if you were patient so Craigy bucked the trend of the whole comp cause he wanted to go left for his heat! “You need BALLS OF STEEL to do this Craig, have you got em?”, I said. “Bloody oath Big Fella bring it on!!!” came the reply.

The heat started and Craig had ‘em out foxed straight away. They all tried to paddle inside him and all along he didn’t care. He paddled into a couple of good ones and with three minutes to the end of the heat he was sitting in 2^nd place. You freakin bloody genius!  He out foxed em’ and they didn’t see it coming!!  Hang a minute…shit a set was looming, Craig was still covering the left but the others managed to scramble on to the rights and they all got high scoring waves....bugger pipped at he post. Craig got bumped to 3^rd place but he scored the highest 2-wave combo of his life, so fantastic effort.  Craig may not have been the best surfer in the heat but he was the smartest and it bloody near payed off for him!  It ain’t always the best surfer that wins…..it’s the best competitor!! Remember that little gem.

I had another good surf in the first round of my age division and probably got out of jail in my semi final but I’ll take a win any day so I was into the final for the 40-45 division on Friday.  Again Friday came around too quick and the nerves were outta control.  My final was two heats after the open final.  I was up against Simon Farrer, who had just surfed and got 2^nd place in the open, Jamie McGure, 6^th in open and Tony Backer 12^th in open. Shit could it get any harder???  But I gave it a crack and got 4^th so I was pretty damn happy with that.  Simon is a dead set freak and scored a perfect 10 and backed it up with an 8.7. I got no shame coming 4^th behind him!!

Throughout the week plenty of laughs were had with my car buddies, John Clingan (Presso of KSA), Rob Slater (Shaper of Drift Kneeboards) and the everlasting Duracell bunny, Baden (I’m plugged in) Smith.  It was great to have them in my corner.  As much as I hate to say it Baden has given me the bug to have a go at 4 fins so you may see Pinebox on a quad in the not too distant future.

Big thanks must also go to the local farmer who opened up his property so we could park on the cliff and have a perfect view of the contest.  It was a great site to sit out the back in the water and look back at the snow-capped Mt Taranaki not more than 20km away.

The closing ceremony and presentations went off without a hitch and the Surf Inn was packed to the rafters again with all the competitors keen to let off some steam.

 Click on PB's World Titles Photos below to view larger version.  All Photos taken by Robbie Slater