WSL Confirms: Snapper Event Is (Probably) Going To Dbah

Cyclone Oma provided the best Gold Coast swell in years, but with the blue hallway barrels now a distant memory, the Superbank remains sandless and disjointed from the remarkable swell it was forced to bear.

“I heard there’s a six-meter hole behind the rock at Snapper,” Coolangatta local and CT surfer Jack Freestone told Stab a few days back. “Usually if the council pumps sand it can change prety quickly. So fingers crossed something magical happens.” 

Bad news: nothing magical has happened.

Despite the 30,000 cubic liters of sand that has been pumped at Froggies (the top of the Superbank), there hasn’t been the correct wind/swell combo to push it around the corner, leaving the once-ruler edged point in a pit of despair. 

With marginal banks at Greenmount and Rainbow Bay, it was looking like the Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast might be held further down the point than usual (perhaps where Filipe won the 2015 event), however, as of a couple hours ago, the WSL has announced that Duranbah is most likely to be the contest venue for this year’s Snapper event – or at least the first part of it. 

The @wsl Instagram caption reads: 

Recent weather compromised the sand at Snapper. D-bah is option for CT season open on Apr 3.

We’re 2 days out from the Quiksilver Pro & Boost Mobile Pro Gold Coast & the world’s best surfers are back in Southern Queensland, Australia

While the opening event always holds the potential of world-class pointbreak walls of the Superbank, unseasonable weather patterns have created a unique situation ahead of the start of the season. The weather pattern, combined with Cyclone Oma, has compromised the sandbar at Snapper and has brought the world-class beachbreak of Duranbah into focus as a potential secondary site.

While we’re hopeful that conditions will repair the sandbar at Snapper Rocks in the coming days, the potential for the high-flying action of the world’s best surfers at “D’Bah” has everyone excited for the start of the year.

(Italo especially.)

So, what does this mean?

1. Fantasy selections are about to change, drastically. Load your squad up with high-flying Brazilians and quick-twitch rookies – the elder statesmen can’t contend in Dbah’s hi-perf peaks.

2. Competitors better adjust their clocks. Despite being spitball-distance from Snapper, Dbah is technically part of New South Wales – an entirely separate state from Queensland’s Gold Coast. Not only does this create permitting issues for the WSL, but NSW is also on a different time zone than QLD, meaning that heats will (theoretically) start one hour earlier at Dbah. With most competitors living on the Queensland side of the divide, they’ll need to make sure that their clocks are set an hour early, at the peril missing their heat. 

3. It’s still gonna be fun to watch – perhaps even more so. When the sand is right and there’s enough swell in the water, Snapper is one of the most entertaining waves on Tour, hands-down. However the current state of Snapper is truly dire, to the extent that fat-backs and Huntington hops would decide the Quikky Pro if the comp was held there. Therefore moving the event to Dbah – which by all (Instagram) accounts has been hella fun of late – is the most logical solution and one that suits the needs of surfers and viewers alike. In fact, we’d wager it’s gonna be pretty fucken mental to watch.  

See you on April 3!