Morning Glory On Day Two Of The Quiksilver Festival presented by Swatch
The party continues with fun beachbreak wedges, plenty of airs, and the occasional Spartanic tube ride.
The storm that gatecrashed the festival’s opening party sent Hossegor into a slumber, as if the town itself had forgotten it had work on Monday.
On Saturday there were bodies everywhere, thousands were moving between the beach and the bars and bistros in the vicinity of the Quik Fest main stage at La Place de Landais, a historical site for post-event celebrations. But for the last couple of days it had been empty, and the streets around Hossegor rinsed clean by a torrential downpour.
The beach went from a several-kilometre-long chaise longue for bare skin to a junkyard of foam, bark, and plastic. Overhead, a stubborn sheet of grey pressed down on flooded laneways and their newly minted potholes.
Surfing’s aristocracy vanished, retreating to their lakeside villas for cosy backgammon duels, scrolling through friends’ and enemies’ feeds, and fiddling with massage guns. A dress rehearsal for winter, minus the sand-bottomed perks that make it bearable.
I’m calling one of Miky Picon’s Sunday freesurf waves a solid 6.73. Riding an Album twin fin at La Centrale, he smoothly slid into a reforming left that appeared out of nowhere: a clean off-the-top, followed by a seamless roundhouse before tagging the end section, capped with the grin of someone who has to love surfing unconditionally to be out and loving it in such miserable conditions.
Today he called the contest on at first light. On the program were Round 2 and the completion of the three remaining heats that had been called off by the kitesurfing demons of Saturday afternoon.
The stretch of sand just north of La Gravière was small, almost skatepark-like. Crisp autumnal offshores on the first properly cold morning in months groomed little peaks and wedges for another round devoted solely to wrenching out the “biggest turn” out of anyone’s repertoire. Airs, carves, whatever. Apples and oranges are equals at the Quiksilver Festival presented by Swatch.
Just before the start of his heat, Sam Piter rode a knee-high punchy shorebreak into a clean, audible rotation a few meters from dry sand. It counted for nothing, but it widened more than a few sleepy eyelids faster than a shot of espresso.
About ten minutes later, he hucked into another one, landed and got an 8.5. With no instant replays and only a leaderboard on a screen tucked in the back of the catering area, the audience interest in this contest was as bare-bones as it gets. Really good surfers on really fun waves, every one of them surfing to the best of their ability. Beach announcers, crowds, and the peanut gallery celebrated near-makes, let alone completions. There was more celebration than tension, though some rivalries were beginning to percolate.
Hughie Vaughan, whose name recently entered the annals of aerial surfing with the provisionally named “Stale Fish Flipper,” found himself in the same heat as Quik teammate Kauli Vaast, the only mountain-and-wave surfer to ever slap a golden sticker on the nose of his board. While the trash talk and sparring between the two was mostly playful, it could have been signaling the beginning of a beautiful rivalry.
This morning, Hughie put his tail higher than his mouth with the day’s biggest, cleanest air reverse into the flats. 9.03. Event record. Kauli Vaast tried something similar on the lefts, did well enough, but his highest score came in at 7.43.
On land, he warned Hughie the next round might look different. Hughie could go higher in the air, but the Olympic gold medalist would wipe the floor with the Aussie larrikin if it came to rail turns. Or would he?
No other surfer in the event drew as much attention from fans as Kauli. On the first day of competition, he sat by the ropes fencing off the surfers’ area for an hour: greeting fans, taking photos, signing autographs, chit-chatting. Say what you will about the Olympics, but it sure gets you places.
As the wind died and the tide dropped, the crew moved to a bank further south, chasing longer rights with the occasional tube section. A bigger set rolled through, and Michel Bourez tucked into the best barrel of the event so far. Moments later, Jeremy Flores, briefly playing beach announcer, called an interference on Bourez after he dropped in on Coco Ho. For Ho, it capped a bad run: on top of getting dropped in on by The Spartan, three of her favorite boards were stolen overnight from Maud Le Car’s house and ended up on Marketplace hours later. Bad form, whoever did it.
Before tripping over a coffee table in the competitors’ area and being helped up by his girlfriend, Griff Colapinto had laid into an angling right with a controlled power carve to blow tail. It almost looked like two different people, one on land, another in the water
Beyond Griff’s turn, the day’s final stretch became an air (rev) show courtesy of Marco Mignot, Zeke Lau, Al Cleland, Mikey Wright, et al. Sans rashguards, Hughie Vaughan and Jackson Dorian staged a show of their own just a stone’s throw from the contest area. Again, neither announcers nor the crowd distinguished between the professional and the leisurely.
After Round 2 and the three unfinished Day 1 heats were completed, Marco Mignot led a beach-start expression session featuring only prepubescent children. An alarming sight.
As soon as they entered the lineup, their developing bodies and ropey limbs were flying through the air, in and out of barrels, carving sharp, mature turns. If confirmation was needed that the future is in good hands — or feet — this might have been it.
Quik Fest side events tend to blur easily into the main competition, often challenging surfers to show up on time for their early morning heats. You can’t be in two places at once, and you certainly need to get in the water to win this thing.
In saying that, tonight’s challenge takes place at Le Surfing in Les Estagnots, Seignosse. Screenings, concerts, food, and drinks. Le festival must go on!
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