SuperSport to broadcast outstanding doccie on Hurley SA Junior Champs

An outstanding TV documentary on the recent 2012 Hurley SA Junior Champs at Jeffreys Bay will be broadcast on the SuperSport6 channels starting on Monday 5 November.

The comprehensive 24 minute show features South Africa’s current crop of hot young surfers in the iconic waves at the Point in J-Bay. Wave after perfect wave peels down the point as the country’s future surf stars showcase their talent and contest savvy in a dazzling display of progressive surfing and high-flying aerial manoeuvres.

Alongside the red hot performances and the pure stoke of the winners, the show goes behind the scenes to deliver revealing interviews on the mindset of the competitors, their lifestyles and ambitions, explains the judging criteria and highlights the camaraderie in the provincial teams at this unique annual event.

Beautifully filmed and edited with a high energy soundtrack, the Hurley SA Junior Champs show premieres on SuperSport 6 and SuperSport6 Africa at 8pm on Monday 5 November with seven repeat broadcasts. Definitely not to be missed!

2012 Hurley SA Junior Champs

Broadcast Schedule

Mon   05-Nov-12   20:00-20:30   SS6/SS6A   Premiere

Tue    06-Nov-12   01:00-01:30   SS6/SS6A   Repeat

Tue    06-Nov-12   15:00-15:30   SS6/SS6A   Repeat

Wed   07-Nov-12   12:00-12:30   SS6/SS6A   Repeat

Fri      09-Nov-12   01:30-02:00   SS6/SS6A   Repeat

Tue   13-Nov-12    07:30-08:00   SS6/SS6A   Repeat

Wed  14-Nov-12    11:00-11:30   SS6/SS6A   Repeat

Thu   15-Nov-12   19:00-19:30    SS6/SS6A   Repeat

Local surfer Gordon Kotze sent in some kiff shots taken from a chopper cruising over St Francis recently. 

"Here are some pics of a dam that is hidden from the road that is big enough to ski on. There was a smaller dam that broke recently and washed down through Santareme eroding houses foundations and destroying boundary walls. If this dam breaks, some folks might have houses in J-Bay."

Incredible to see the amount of water around. We were there over the weekend just to check our house was still in one piece, and the roads are really trashed. You need goggles and a snorkel to play a round of golf. Least the new temporary bridge looks well-made and should last better than the previous one.

All images by Greg Darling.

In the interests of preserving both safety and sanity in the line-ups this summer, Millerslocal got together with our local surf shops owners, shapers and surf clubs to put together a Surf Safe flyer. A late arvo beer or two at bridThis features the in's and out's of how a surf spot works, to help ou's starting out - so at least when they hit the waves they have some idea of how not to (a) cause major bodily harm to everyone else around them cos of flying boards, and (b) not piss the locals off too much.

The flyers will be handed out with every board sold to a newbie at Surf Centre and The Boardroom, which probably covers about 90% of the board sales in PE. 

CYOH will be helping out with distributing the flyers at the main surf spot car parks at the beginning of the holidays, just to make sure the word gets spread far and wide! 

If you have some mate's just starting out, let em know they can come grab one at Surf Centre on the beachfront if they want a quick heads up on how this whole surfing thing works.

Many thanks to local surfers Andre Clarke from Synergy Solutions and Matthew Chance from Media Mast, for doing the design and printing of the flyer, and to Dave, Dennis, Josh and Jakes for their input.

Must admit I blinked once or twice when I first saw Richard's shot of his lightie Zoomie surfing the stand-up wave in the Sand River - not something you see every day! Turns out local Dan Chipps spotted the potential for some fun when the river came down and sent out a call to all his mate's to see who was up for it - and only Zoomie came to the party. So the 2 of them went on a mission!

We caught up with Dan to find out more:

ML: So how did the river surfing mission come about?

Dan: When we heard the bridge washed away I knew there was no time to surf Bruces with those crowds! So I sent out my broadcast message asking if any one wants to join me in trying to surf the sand river. Eight local messages were sent, but only one guy was keen - Zoomie (Andrew) Arderne. So I packed the car with some boards, a ski rope and went to drop the lady off....there are more important things going on! 

ML: So how hard was it to find a wave?

Dan: We parked the car and ran into the water which swept us down a little, and found a perfect wave. But the problem was it was right at the bridge where every one could see us! 

ML: Heard the cops had an issue with you guys!

Yah, the police tried to pull rank on us telling us to get out, but they were wayyyy too afraid to get in and fetch us! We weren't amped to cause a scene, so we went further downriver.

ML: What was the wave like?

This river surfing story isn't easy! When you fall off it takes you into trees and washes you around! I had a couple of good ones though! When we got out we got surrounded by these Dutchmen wanting to cuff us! We told them what we thought though! I mean, people do this in the Amazon and here its like 40cm deep! 

Had a good laugh at them, gave them my hands saying "cuff me and we will see what happens to you for doing it". I mean it was not even their property! 

We got out of it though!

Definitely going to go back there next time with a 1/4 pipe I have and stick that into the river and see what happens. Only problem is your boards are finished after surfing the river. The branches and trees and stuff beat them up bad.

Hummies last Thursday was proper 3rd pylon thumping stuff. The guys were getting properly worked by the big easterly lumps. You could almost feel the pillars shudder as the swells hit, and you sure as hang could hear the impact. Mike Holmes got a few shots of the mayhem.

The other local spot that loves an East swell is Bruces, and the SF locals picked up a few waves over that side as well. Thanks to St Francis Connect for the pics.

Plenty of rain the last few days, which saw parts of the city underwater as well as the Sand River bridge at St Francis going kaput yet again. The ou's who went to Seals for the weekend are stoked to have a legit excuse to bunk work and school for the first part of the week!

On a more serious note, you can donate food, blankets etc at the South End fire station to assist all those that lost homes in the floods.

Here's a collection of pics from around the Eastern Cape....

JBay local and Surflife coach Shannon Ainslie recently spent some time doing a bit of coaching in Norway. We decided to catch up with him to see what that was all about...

"I was in Norway 3 years ago in Stavanger running surf courses and surf camps. I gave lessons from summer through to winter. This time round I was in a place called Unstad which is in the Lofoten islands above the arctic circle. The place has extremely good waves and a lot of pro surfers are starting to come here now because of the good waves and the extreme surf conditions. 

In the summer the water is around 11 degrees and in the winter it's around 4 degrees. When I was in Stavanger the last time the water was around 0 degrees. 

Giving surf lessons and running surf camps here is super crazy as the weather and surf conditions are always extreme. I have surfed and given lessons in 0 degrees water with -15 degrees Celcius. It's always cold, wet and windy. There have been times when my gloves on my hands start freezing and it feels like I have frost bite on my fingertips and my nose. Other times my hair has frozen after taking my hood off. I have surfed in hail and snow and is super fun!!

The last few months I ran a 3 day surf camp every week and did surf coaching and surf lessons. I worked with a surf camp called Unstad Camping where we are trying to develop and grow surfing in Norway. Most of the surfers here are above 20 years old so I am trying to work with the kids and trying to get schools involved to help us develop surfing amongst the kids/ youth, just like what I do in Surflife in Jeffrey's Bay and Port Elizabeth."

Lucky wind is something foreign to you if you're from PE. Just as well cos it can pomp in the tropics too! Some pretty unseasonal weather has klapped us for the last few days, but hey, at least the water's still 28C and the air temp hovers just above 30C.

And if the surfs a bit funky, well, then you fish. Which ain't a bad second option. For us, but maybe not the fish! Some serious trawling managed to hook us into some big GT's, a coupla small tuna, a decent wahoo and a barracuda, plus a few reef fish. Nothing goes to waste - the freezer is stocked and we can eat for the week! Cos we were running outta chow!

We'd originally only intended to stay for 2 weeks, but due to the iffy weather last week decided to say what the hell and stay another week. Nothing like knowing you're gonna be coming home to small summer onshore swell to make you determined to squeeze as much surf outta ya holiday as you can!

Charts are looking decent for the whole of next week, and supposedly so is the weather....but then that tends to change at the drop of a hat and we've given up checking the wind reports cos generally they don't seem to hold true.

So here's holding thumbs....

Ok, so there is a downside to surfing your brains out in a tropical paradise. It's called photokeratitis...or "arc eye's" to the rest of us. A 5 hour sesh on a bright sunny day resulted in me burning the crap outta my cornea's! Take my word for it, this is not recommended! 

I was sitting out in the line-up trying to work out why suddenly my eye's were just closing, and refusing to open. Like someone had slipped me a sleeping tablet or something. Try as I might to open them they just kept slamming shut. I gave up in the end and headed back to the boat.

The next morning I woke up, with eyeballs that felt like they had been kicked around the streets of Motherwell like soccer balls. Forget even trying to open them outside a darkened room, they just teared up totally and closed of there own accord. Downed a coupla anti-inflamm's and squirted in some eye drops and hoped for the best. Made all the more annoying by the fact that there were perfect lil 3-4ft lines coming down the reef.

Ended up having to spend most of the morning inside the cabin and far away from the eye-frying UV rays. Luckily discovered that the Kindle ebook can actually read to you, that's something the paper books can't do!

But as Sundays are braai days, even in the Maldives, we missioned over to the island to cook a choppie or two. The locals had made us a make-shift braai grid using some chicken wire and metal oddments lying about. Hard to beat sitting under a palm tree looking out over glassy lines peeling off the reef and chowing your chop! Even if your eye's feel kak....

Yrrr, you kids rock! We're all bursting with pride at your amazing achievement  The first win at an SA Junior Champs by an EP team ever! Nothing like saving it til we're on home ground too! Ha, watch out all you Durban, Border and CT ou's, our lighties are gonna come smoke you at SA Open Champs in a coupla years!

Thanks to Louisa Lightfoot for keeping us up to date with all the news and pics. Here's her event summary:


"The team worked extremely hard for this achievement, they went to bed every night early, woke up each day at 5.30 for a dawnie at 6 before the comp.  Graham Hynes – at 83 yrs old –  and  Ettienne Venter were on the beach each day at 6 to coach the team.  The team managers Alester and Heidi  Smith were tireless in their support, demanding the best from the team, in the water and supporting their team on the beach.

 The Eastern Province team lost two very experienced older surfers last year in Emma Smith and Steven Sawyer, but when Dylan Lightfoot qualified for ASP Worlds and had to leave the team to go to Bali, the team was so disappointed. The team then powered together and the fantastic result was achieved through every team member putting in the last little bit of energy they could muster. The fact that a surfer like Crystal Hulett won her division and Ashley Vaughn got into the final, two fairly unknown surfers upsetting some big names in junior surfing, showed the power of the team working together.

 Hurley put on a fantastic competition with the Supertubes foundation improving the Point park and  making it look really lovely for the event.  EP Surfing would like to thank Billabong for their donation of clothing and all the smaller donations from the smaller companies, Moms and Dads."


OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE:

Eastern Province dominated the Hurley SA Junior Champs in their home surf at Jeffreys Bay, clinching the coveted Freedom Cup team trophy for the first time in the 16 year history of the event and earning three of the six South African individual titles and three of the five special awards on offer.

South Africa’s premier event for surfers aged17-and-under ended today (Sunday) after enjoying a phenomenal five straight days of excellent surf at the Point with offshore winds every day grooming the waves and giving the competitors the every opportunity to showcase their talent.

The team title was extremely close with the powerful KwaZulu-Natal Central (KZNC) team from Durban finishing just 184 points behind EP in second place, with defending champions Western Province a distant third 1 143 points further back. Boland placed fourth followed by Southern KZN, Southern Cape, Border, the SA Development Academy and Zululand.

Matt McGillivray of EP was the standout performer in J-Bay, producing inspired surfing that saw him win every heat on his way to the national U15 boys’ title. He was deservedly crowned the Hurley Surfer of the Contest, in association with All Aboard Travel, earning a R20 000 voucher to any destination in the world, and then pocketed another R5 000 for winning the Red Bull Airshow where he beat the best aerial surfers at the event.

Benji Brand (WP) was on fire on the final day, employing his trademark vertical backhand repertoire to win the national U17 title and also taking home the R3 000 for the Citroën Highest Heat Score award when he posted a 17.0 point out of 20 total in his semi-final encounter. Diran Zakarian (Boland) took the runner-up spot with Jason Harris (KZNC) in third and Ethan Pentz (WP) placing fourth

J-Bay local Gina Smith (EP) was another who went unbeaten throughout the event, going on the be crowned the national U17 girls champion ahead of Inge McLaren (Border), teammate and last year’s U15 champion Tahra Uren (EP) and Caryn McNicol (KZNC).

McGillivray’s dominating victory in the U15 boys division saw Shane Sykes (KZNC) finish second with Jordy Maree (WP) taking third and Nthando Msibi (KZNC) in fourth place. Msibi received the Zigzag Blowing Up award and a R3 000 prize-purse.

The U15 girls’ final was a closely fought affair and when the spray settled Crystal Hulett (EP) was the champion with 2011 winner, Chanelle Botha (SKZN) close behind in second. Olivia Brand (KZNC) and Ruth Armstrong (WP) placed third and fourth respectively.

Adin Masencamp (Boland), who had held the lead in the Citroën Highest Heat Score award for the first four days of the tournament, successfully defended his U13 boys’ title, finishing just ahead of arch-rival Ethan Fletcher (WP). Jose Faulkner (EP) took third and Max Elkington (WP) placed fourth.

The U13 girls’ title went to Sophie Bell (KZNC) who racked up a massive 15.0 points to deny Kai Woolf (EP) a second successive title in her home surf. Ashleigh Vaughan finished ahead of Danica Stockigt (Border) in the final to grab third place.

The Skullcandy Team Spirit award was presented to Eastern Province whose enthusiasm and support for their teammates paid off with team and individual honours that will go down in the annals of South African surfing history.

Daily blogs, interviews, video uploads, images, event schedule and results from the Hurley SA Junior Champs are posted on www.sajuniorchamps.co.za with results and info also found atwww.surfingsouthafrica.co.za.

 Hurley Surfer of the Contest, in association with All Aboard Travel

Matt McGillivray (EP) – R20 000 travel voucher

 Red Bull Airshow

Matt McGillivray (EP) – R5 000

 Citroën Highest Heat Score

Benji Brand (WP) – R3 000

 Zigzag Blowing Up Award

Nthando Msibi (KZNC) – R3 000

 Skullcandy Team Spirit Award

Eastern Province