The Woz Tries To Turn A Tanker With Occy Vs Curren Heritage Round, Almost Succeeds
“A terrible morning of waves that you wouldn’t wish upon your worst enemy,” read Swellnet’s Bells forecast.
Richie Porta calls from the garden. ‘Where is he?’ I wondered. It looked calm and peaceful, not like Bells, which looked sorer than Jack Robinson’s knee.
“It’s a terrible morning of waves that you wouldn’t wish upon your worst enemy,” read Swellnet’s Bells Dawn Report. “Size has eased a lot from yesterday, winds are fresh out of the S/SW and all that’s left are slow, lacklustre 3ft peaks of short range windswell, and the sheltered points west from Torquay are too small. Give it a miss. Oh, and in other news the Rip Curl Pro will probably be on at Bells!”
Caustic.
But it aged well.
The women’s round of 16 went first, then just one heat of the mens round of 16 before the event was put on hold.
The Occy vs Curren heritage bout was sandwiched in between and was the heat of the day.
That’s not saying much.
TLDR
- Mark Occhilupo wins heritage round over Tom Curren in best heat of the day
- World number #1 Molly Picklum narrowly escapes elimination
- WSL puts even on hold after abysmal conditions for Joao Chianca and Matt McGillivray R16 clash
- Good weather for ducks
The women’s round was a bit of a snoozefest. Heaps of fours. No one went north of 15 points. Tyler Wright, Carissa Moore, Bella Nicholls and Caroline Marks were the standouts. Caity Simmers landed a roundhouse-to-reverse and then tried a shuv-it and lost. Molly Picklum missed elimination by the skin of her teeth. Lakey vs Steph was the best heat of the round, both put up sharp performances and the leader changed multiple times. Lakey got the best wave of the heat and blew it on her last turn. Steph got the w.
Next was the Heritage Round.
I thought this heritage thing might be sad, but I was gladly proven wrong. Curren rode a 6’6” CI Black Beauty with ‘S’-shaped fins, Occy rode a JS channel bottom with 327 L of volume. More surprising than Curren not riding a skimboard was that he actually looked excited to be there – he even kicked the water a little on his paddle back out after his first wave.
The biggest takeaway was how much better surfing looks without constant pumping. I love Joao’s surfing (who surfed in the heat after) but the elder pairs’ (a combined age of 117) approach to reading a wave made it seem frantic.
Tom looked amazing on his first wave on his stretched out Merrick. His first was a 7.67 for a re-entry, to carve to end-section snap. He quickly backed it up with another two perfectly executed down-the-line snaps adding in some backside wiggles as the bowl flattened out – a 5.17.
Occy opted to go deeper on the bowl, digging his a good 70% of his JS into his grab-rail bottom turn and putting it 12 o’clock on the lip bash. For the single turn, he received an 8. He paired it with a lesser turn for a 5.50.
“Put some more time on the clock!” joked Richie Lovett.
His request went ignored.
The 99’ World Champ beat the 1985, 1986, and 1990 World Champ and now owns an OG Simon Anderson thruster replica from 81’.
Cool!
Joao vs Matt kicked off the men’s round of 16. The waves went even more abysmal and the Woz pulled the pin after just one heat.
Jack Robbo probably would’ve been chuffed with the outcome, Filipe too who could be wearing yellow at Margaret River if he makes a final here.
Needless to say, Matt won.
Now back to your regularly scheduled lives!
Gamble Ramble
4/9 correct picks for Mikey C today. Still he’s up $44. Practice being a calculated risk-taker over at Betonline.AG.
Women’s R3
$50 on Macy Callaghan at +200 to win $100 WON
$50 on BLSJ at -115 to win $43 WON
$20 on Isabella Nichols at +200 to win $40 LOST
$20 on Sophie McCulloch at +250 to win $50 LOST
$15 on Kobe Enright at +375 to win $56 LOST
$30 on Gabriela Bryan at +250 to win $75 LOST
$50 on Tatiana WW at +100 to win $50 WON
$20 on Lakey Peterson +145 to win $30 LOSS
$100 on Tom Curren at +110 to win $110 LOST
$30 on Matty McG at +185 to win $56 WON
$40 on Ethan Ewing at -125 to win $32
$20 on Jordy Smith at +135 to win $27
$20 on Jacko Baker at +100 to win $22
$20 on Xavier Huxtable at +115 to win $23
$20 on Máxime Huscenot at +160 to win $32
$100 on Griffin C at -130 to win $77
Day 3: $44 (thus far)
Overall event earnings $275
Results
Heritage Round
- Occy (13.50) DEF Curren (12.84)
Women’s Round of 16
- Issy Nichols (13.67) DEF Caity Simmers (6.67)
- Caroline Marks (12.33) DEF Macy Callaghan (10.07)
- Molly Picklum (8.70) DEF Sophie McCollough (7.93)
- Bettylou S. Johnson (11.73) DEF Sally Fitzgibbons (9.66)
- Carissa Moore (14.04) DEF Kobie Enright (11.23)
- Tyler Wright (12.17) DEF Gabriela Bryan (10.10)
- Tatiana WW (9.36) DEF Courtney Conlogue (9.23)
- Steph Gilmore (11.20) DEF Lakey Peterson (11.00)
Men’s Round of 16
- Matt McGillivray (10.43) DEF Joao Chianca (9.90)
Comments
Comments are a Stab Premium feature. Gotta join to talk shop.
Already a member? Sign In
Want to join? Sign Up