Stab Magazine | No Contest France and Portugal: The World Tour's European Leg Is A Decadent Affair

Season finale of How Surfers Get Paid drops Thursday, 5pm PT

434 Views

No Contest France and Portugal: The World Tour’s European Leg Is A Decadent Affair

La Grav fires, Lisbon is the cosmopolitan surfer’s dream, things get fishy in Peniche, and there just ain’t no party like an Airborne party ’cause an Airborne party don’t stop. 

cinema // Nov 8, 2019
Words by stab
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Welcome back to No Contest, our indulgent travelogue series with Red Bull following the World Championship Tour. 

On this episode, we’re running our fingers along French lace, then down Portuguese burel wool along the so-called European Leg—the ninth and tenth stops on the WSL Championship Tour: Hossegor, France and Supertubos, Portugal. 

For decades, the European leg has served as the CT’s cultural high water mark, while also landing at a crucial pivot point in the year as far as ratings, requalification, and historically, World Title campaigns, which makes for a polarizing experience depending on a surfer’s position.

 

no contest europe gallery kolohe andino

Kolohe Andino fading into a La Grav drainer.

Photography

Trevor Moran

After a few days of sandbar barrels and a little backstory on the Capbreton Bunkers (Nazis!?), we kick off Red Bull Airborne’s final event of the fast and loose tour’s first year in style, with a full cast dinner of moules frites and gambas—massive bowls of mussels and thin-cut fries, and generous plates of grilled shrimp (washed down by more than a few bottles of good Bordeaux). 

We go behind the scenes like we always do at Airborne, for the tour’s most ridiculously entertaining event to-date, and celebrate our boy Ian Crane’s big win at the Stab House on the beach at La Grav. 

If you’ve never done it, any visiting surfer has to make the drive from France to Portugal, if only to get a good look at the Spanish Basque Country, and two of the most culturally, culinarily, and architecturally rich cities in Europe, if not the world: San Sebastian and Bilbao. 

no contest europe jordy smith gallery tube

Jordy Smith more than happy to stretch his legs and stand tall in some sandbar pits after a week crouching in the wave pool.

Photography

Trevor Moran

On our way south, we made a quick stop in San Sebastian with Josh Kerr and Ian Crane, Chris Cote, Vaughan Blakey, and friends for some pintxos, cidre, and good Spanish red, before a lesson in Basque cooking at the Gastronomic Society, a private eating club traditional to the area where club members gather with family to cook. Our menu, soft eggs with local mushrooms, and a few massive hunks of txuleta steak, thick-cut bone-in Basque entrecote that’s served rare and simply salted. 

The drive from France to Peniche, Portugal takes eight to nine hours, depending on the route, with countless potential Spanish pit stops between Madrid, Galicia, and Salamanca, before getting to Peniche, and to the south, Ericeira, plus the oldest city in Western Europe, Lisbon. 

Situated at the mouth of the Tagus, the longest river on the Iberian Peninsula, Lisbon has for centuries been a linchpin trade location for Europe and the rest of the world. The gorgeous architecture of Lisbon today can be traced back to the city’s rise to power during Portugal’s incredible period of exploration, discovery, and conquest in the 15th and 16th centuries. 

no contest europe gallery julian wilson

Julian Wilson’s full-sends made for French highlights, whether in the main event, Red Bull Airborne, or morning freesurfs.

Photography

Trevor Moran

In the last five years, countless international pros have relocated to Portugal. Why? Incredibly affordable property often a stone’s throw from any number of world-class waves within a short drive from Lisbon International. Often described as a mix between Paris and San Francisco, it doesn’t take long to understand why Lisbon is so attractive to a proudly cosmopolitan character like Kanoa Igarashi, who has called Ericeira, Cascais, and Lisbon home for the last half-decade. 

For locals, visitors, and especially California transplants like Kanoa Igarashi, Lisbon’s proximity to world-class waves like Carcavelos, the reefs around Ericeira, the shifting sandbanks of Supertubos and Peniche an hour north, and Nazare just beyond that, makes it a pretty damn radical place to live and surf. One of the most electric cosmopolitans in Europe, with countless dream waves within striking distance. 

Aside from some of the most wave-rich coastline in Europe, Portugal is known for castles, cork, and seafood—especially the area’s famously plump little sardines. If you’re curious where the overwhelming aroma of raw fish is emanating from, look no further than the fishing boats in the Peniche harbor, and the sardine cannery smack dab in the middle of town.  

Seafood is big business if Portugal. The country has the third-highest seafood consumption per capita in Europe, and for centuries the area has relied on a ridiculously bountiful sardine population. However, in the last decade and a half, the once-plentiful sardines have become increasingly sparse and expensive. in the last decade, the sardine population has dropped, mostly due to climate change and excessive fishing. In 2006, fishermen caught 106,000 tonnes of sardines, versus 22,000 tonnes in 2016. 

And if they aren’t sinking their teeth into sardines, surfers in town for the Rip Curl Pro Portugal are doing their best to read the winds, tides, and shifting sandbars around the complicated Peniche coastline. From Supertubos to the south, Peniche juts east into the Atlantic like a veritable peninsula. While there are a few waves in the rocky nooks around the city center, most of the best surf is found on the sandbars to the north, when south winds blow out Supertubos but groom the north-facing adjacent beaches. As fickle as anywhere on tour, if you’re on it, hunting waves around Peniche can be widly rewarding: think short windows of uncrowded, often empty sandbar barrels.

It’s worth noting, the Portugal Current brings cold water from the north which is why Portugal’s colder than France 

Europe is a particularly rich region to document, and this was one of our favorite episodes to make. This is No Contest France and Portugal. 

no contest europe gallery leonardo fioravanti

Hossegor transplant Leo Fiorivanti came back swinging from his shoulder injury incurred in West Oz, taking down Kelly Slater in front of a packed local crowd, and scoring more than his share of La Grav pits in freesurfs. Welcome back, Leo.

Photography

Trevor Moran

Comments

Comments are a Stab Premium feature. Gotta join to talk shop.

Already a member? Sign In

Want to join? Sign Up

Advertisement

Most Recent

Take Stab’s 2023 Audience Survey, Win A 3-Board Quiver

Stab towels and Premium subscriptions also up or grabs.

Mar 21, 2023

Jessi Miley Dyer On The New Challenger Series Schedule And More

Did you know that you could miss the mid-year cut and still theoretically win the…

Mar 20, 2023

5:05

Don’t Miss The Last Wave Of The First 2023 SEOTY Entry

Jacob Willcox's ‘Into Dust’ demands your pupils.

Mar 20, 2023

Warren Smith on New Welcome Rivers Range and Buying Jaguars on Facebook Marketplace  

Now available in the Antipodes...

Mar 20, 2023

5:13

Wavegarden Spills How The Sausage Is Made

BTS of their global air wave rollout ft. Yago Dora, Dion Agius, Reef Heazlewood and…

Mar 18, 2023

Minds, Machines, And The Magic Of Hands

How modern shapers split their time between designing files and hand-finishing boards.

Mar 18, 2023

3:31

Are Hectic Lefts The Final Finless Frontier?

William Aliotti is on the right-foot-forward fringes.

Mar 17, 2023

Watch: Luke + Eddie

A mostly unknown, on-duty lifeguard won the most prestigious big-wave event in history. How Luke…

Mar 17, 2023

7:10

A Pipe Master, Ryan Burch, And Some Pickle Forks On The Eastern Seaboard

This one ticks a lot of boxes

Mar 16, 2023

Brazil Has A Talent Problem

And three other things we learned from the Rip Curl Pro Portugal.

Mar 16, 2023

2:05

Mick Fanning On A Unicorn, Bags Of Dicks, And A Shocking Script Read By Surfing’s Biggest Stars

Vaughan Blakey and Nick Pollet on their outrageous film, 'The Greatest Surf Movie In The…

Mar 15, 2023

Italo Ferreira Caught 63 Waves In An Hour

And other stats from our Stab in the Dark production.

Mar 15, 2023

3:41

Can A Freesurfer Go The Other Way? A Dakoda Walters Case Study

The 57-kilo Aussie has taken a Stab High approach to trad contest surfing.

Mar 15, 2023

Caity Simmers And João Chianca Fulfill Respective Prophecies Under Gaze Of Portuguese President

A very good day of competitive surfing.

Mar 14, 2023

Kelly And Steph Are In Trouble

What's a GOAT gotta do to make the cut around here?

Mar 14, 2023

15:28

“I Used To Only Surf Here With One Guy…His Name’s Henry, And He’s A Seal”

A contemplation on the frigid desolation of Iceland.

Mar 14, 2023

World #1 Carissa Moore Vanquished By Front Pad Toting Wildcard, Lucky Few Get Supertubed

‘Go hard or go home, innit’ 

Mar 13, 2023

Hungover Hold-Downs, Patent Feuds, And One-In-A-Million Malfunctions Involving 11x World Champs: The Story Of Surfing’s Inflatable Vests

These things changed the game.

Mar 13, 2023
Advertisement