photos: Nick Pumphrey and Marc Llewellyn, words: Alexei Obolensky
Firstly, I hate surf contests.
I hate being dragged out of the office whilst I have stuff to do. I do like drinking beer in the sun but I don’t like a rainy forecast. I also don’t really like hanging at the beach allllll day as I have an irrational hatred of sand. Also midweek events – why?
So when I was instructed Wasted Talent either had to enter a team of surfers to a surf contest, or provide some (easily corruptible) judges to a surf contest. On a Wednesday. With rain forecasted. My eyebrow was arched.
Enter the Salty Crew Fish Tail Invitational. A softboard non contest, contest with an emphasis on being silly. And most probably drunk.
Leaving my desk for the 9.30am call was hard but I felt duly bound to support. Think Aunt’s birthday. You don’t really want to go. But you have to. I arrived at the beach. It was 9.30. Pints were already being suckled down with much gusto. Now this is my kinda day. The sun was out, the waves were a total dream. A little peak, dreamy wedges just made for the carnage that was about to be unleashed. The surfers already out there by the time we staggered over were quickly discouraged from surfing further, as it was obvious they were going to be dropped in on every wave. Sorry guys.
We’re still not sure as to what the judging criteria was, something about cumulative scores. All normal rules were out the window as interferences were encouraged. Wasted Talent were weirdly knocked out first round, despite our best efforts to buy the judges.
Heats progressed, the waves got better. It was really, really hot. It was a little hazy. Pints in the sun have a habit of sneaking up on you. 10 of them even more so. The Welsh Twats, a team comprised of Rob Blythe and Jay Phipps won the final convincingly due to a quite frankly impressive board transfer. They were the team to watch throughout the entire event and quite frankly we couldn’t be more jealous. As they hoisted high the oversized cheque, we cried further into our pints.
Breezing away the afternoon, enjoying the day of days.
Thanks to Salty Crew, and Elmar’s snack bar for putting on such a great event.
