Discussing Designer Waves, Jeep Jerseys And Brazilian Wonk With Jake “Snake” Paterson

We’ve had an exhilarating yet exhausting time with wavepool competitions and new releases littering the walls of Stab and any feed of anyone who’s ever searched the word “surf” in their lifetime. For the past week, we’ve woke to a screen full of never before seens…

No doubt things are evolving. Head-spinningly fast.

However, at the end of the day, we do have a tour to finish and with stop four (or is it three and a half?) just days away, it’s time to get into traditional competitive surf, with all its flaws and unpredictability.

Back to the ocean. 

Who better to return us to our OG comp roots than veteran CT hero and supercoach, Jake ‘Snake’ Paterson?

We dropped him a line to get his thoughts on what the hell is actually going on with this thing called surf, to review recent inland events and shed some light on what we should expect from the impending Oui Rio Pro.

Stab: Snake! Did you make it to the Founder’s Cup? What’d you think?
Snake: No. I haven’t actually been yet, but I am super excited to go and hopefully ride the wave. 

I think it turned out better than I expected. I thought it might get a little boring, but I was excited the whole time with the format. It was great mixing it up from the norm.

The highlight for me had to be Team World winning. Just goes to show you need to put your balls on the line to win there.

Performance wise, I really liked Kanoa Igarashi on the rights, that was sick. You can’t go past Filipe and that ten pointer, oh and Gabby on the last day was crazy!

Anything you disliked about the event?
Probably how it broke down half way through the first day. Live TV still streaming and everyone sat around for an hour waiting for a wave… Not on!

How about the scoring?
I liked it. The wave is so long so super hard to piece it all together, but I didn’t see anything that I thought was unusual. It worked well.

What will you be telling your team? Any strategies and learnings from it all?
Balls to the wall boys. The guys that do the best out there are the most confident on putting it all together when it counts. There is a full strategy to take pressure off yourself, just depends on the format.

For me, it was clear the guys that have risen in the pool the most were more experienced. Kelly made it look so easy – like it was in his backyard [laughs]. I’m sure all the athletes are going to try and get as much time at the place before the CT and tailor their equipment. We did see Jordy use some different craft and looked like it worked really well.

What do you think about all this Waco business?
It looks incredible, short and super exciting. I already heard that when Seth landed that backflip he had already had ten goes at it in the last hour. That is just crazy.

I was talking to Zeke last night about it and he thinks you might get six sections all year to do a backflip like that, and with this technology, you can just keep doing it till you get it right.

Are any of your team booked in? 
Zeke is frothing to go but I’m trying to get him to spend more time at Kelly’s pool in preparation for the CT comp.

So, back to the main event at hand, who are you backing for Rio?
Italo. He looks like he has gone to another level this year and is going to be hard to stop.

Juilan Wilson and Griffin Colapinto too. Power and the ability to launch huge airs is what you need to have in Brazil, and these guys have it dialled. 

Last year, Yago Dora made the semifinals as a wildcard with his crazy air game, he will be very dangerous out there.

Let’s talk about the waves, what kind of conditions should we expect?
Hard. Even when it’s good it’s a hard back-washy wave to ride. I really hope the event gets a chance to run at the righthander at the other end of the beach. It’s a sick right but needs a lot of things to go right for it to work.

It’s a hard wave and even the best can look average at times out there.

Will Filipe exhibit a little more emotional control?
One hundred percent. Last year’s fuck up cost him a chance at a Title run. Once bitten twice shy!

How does the forecast look for your favourite highly-imperfect, Brazilian ocean wave? 
Pretty awful. At least until early to mid next week.

Oi Rio Women’s Pro Round 1 Matchups:

Heat 1: Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS), Nikki Van Dijk (AUS), Coco Ho (HAW)
Heat 2: Tyler Wright (AUS), Caroline Marks (USA), Bronte Macaulay (AUS)
Heat 3: Stephanie Gilmore (AUS), Malia Manuel (HAW), Taí­s Almeida (BRA)
Heat 4: Lakey Peterson (USA), Sage Erickson (USA), Pauline Ado (FRA)
Heat 5: Carissa Moore (HAW), Silvana Lima (BRA), Paige Hareb (NZL)
Heat 6: Tatiana Weston-Webb (BRA), Johanne Defay (FRA), Keely Andrew (AUS)

Oi Rio Men’s Pro Round 1 Matchups:

Heat 1: Filipe Toledo (BRA), Kanoa Igarashi (JPN), Ian Gouveia (BRA)
Heat 2: Jordy Smith (ZAF), Tomas Hermes (BRA), Miguel Pupo (BRA)
Heat 3: Owen Wright (AUS), Wade Carmichael (AUS), Wiggolly Dantas (BRA)
Heat 4: John John Florence (HAW), Joan Duru (FRA), Mikey Wright (AUS)
Heat 5: Gabriel Medina (BRA), Jesse Mendes (BRA), Alejo Muniz (BRA)
Heat 6: Julian Wilson (AUS), Patrick Gudauskas (USA), Deivid Silva (BRA)
Heat 7: Italo Ferreira (BRA), Connor O’Leary (AUS), Keanu Asing (HAW)
Heat 8: Adriano de Souza (BRA), Griffin Colapinto (USA), Michael February (ZAF)
Heat 9: Michel Bourez (PYF), Conner Coffin (USA), Yago Dora (BRA)
Heat 10: Adrian Buchan (AUS), Sebastian Zietz (HAW), Ezekiel Lau (HAW)
Heat 11: Matt Wilkinson (AUS), Jeremy Flores (FRA), Willian Cardoso (BRA)
Heat 12: Kolohe Andino (USA), Frederico Morais (PRT), Michael Rodrigues (BRA)