2004-11-19

Friday saw a big south west swell and strong south west winds battering the coastline.
This enabled us to run the heats in a chunky kelp infested reefbreak called Back o' Lighthouse.

It is hard to get some of the spots...

... even the strongest 4x4 gets bogged.

... but if u make it the set up is really nice.

To get in or out from the water the sailors have to treat their feet badly.

Smackfest finalists Andrew Morris, Kim Anderson, Brenden Petersen and James Atkinson were finally able to battle head to head in some challeging conditions. There were a lot of big wipeouts as competitors wrangled with the unpredictable wave and shallow reef. Brenden Petersen of Newcastle edged out Denmarks Kim Anderson with his big clean forward loops. The highlight heat of the whole event was the grand final between Andrew Morris of Newcastle and James Atkinson of Launceston.

Some of the sets had a solid size - and they were breaking into dry rocks.

James went out with guns blazing nailing a clean one handed forward. On his first wave going for the lip he was a fraction too late and was enveloped by a thick 3/4 mast lip. Whilst swimming for his gear, Andrew 'Morry' Morris clocked up some clean forwards and a nice one handed table top. After recovering his gear, James kept upwind and concentrated on upping his jump score, attempting a double forward and sticking a nice backloop. Morry struggled a little with his timing but still managed to pull off some syko carves in the bowl. He was edged out though by Atkinson who whacked an awesome speed whack to floater over an almost dry kelp bed. The rest of us freesailed the afternoon away, enjoying the waves as they cleaned up and got a little bigger.

Morry going for a 'Backy'

Smack by Dougal

James tries to score a Double FW

Results
1 James Atkinson / Tasmania, Australia
2 Andrew Morris / NSW, Australia
3 Brenden Petersen / NSW, Australia
4 Kim Anderson / Denmark

The finalists Andrew Morris & James Atkinson and SF Organiser Quentin Bye.