The fourth and final instalment of Finals Day concluded post-midday WEST at Supertubos in good to great 6 foot strong cross-shore surf with tubes aplenty.
Straight up, we have to pay the WSL for the call. With Europe ablaze and the sport now in disrepute amongst the mainstream press they faced down critics and protocol to hold out for the best surf of the event and got the right men and women into the pointy end of the comp.
Supertubos lineup (WSL/Poullenot)
We’ll start with the Women’s Final between 2024 World Champ Caitlin Simmers and reigning world champ Molly Picklum. You really couldn’t ask for more in a Final. Hollow surf, a beach full of people pumped on the rides, and arguably the two best of the current generation shooting it out with elite tuberiding skills and stylistic flourishes.
At 20, Simmers seems to have absorbed entire eras of surfing and is able to showcase them when appropriately excited by the quality of surf. Everything was there: the look back stalled bottom turns, the soul arches into the tube, the perfect backside tube stance. You could run that Final in similar surf a hundred times and likely the result would be different each time.
Caity (WSL/Poullenot)
In this instance, Pickles just found the bigger, more open waves and made no mistakes. Her top scoring ride came halfway through the heat. A heaving backlit left which justified the Portuguese Pipeline tag.
Simmers had made some minor mistakes: a little too steezy on a tube slouch, not quite finishing off a couple of rides. This was no nonchalant CNGAF performance though. Simmers rode 11 waves, including 6 after Pickles took the lead in an attempt to stem the deficit. The Final margin was less than a point, a fair indication of how close the heat was and a tantalising glimpse of a Pipeline showdown.
Even though this year is about the joy and not the trophies for Simmers, a win or final showing at Cloud 9 and she is right in it at Pipe with the 1.5 x loading, especially if any of the front runners stumble early in the Philippines. For now, Pickles takes yellow, a preferred position for her and she earns favouritism to defend the title.
Pickles (WSL/Poullenot)
14 waves ridden in the first Men’s Semi-Final between former world champs Italo Ferriera and Gabe Medina.
We bring the focus to the only excellent ride of the heat, and the winning wave, executed by Gabe with ten minutes remaining. Throaty, backwashy tube flecked with spittle from a previous wave. Gabe negotiated a difficult but relatively shallow tube and threw an air reverse into the oncoming section for a successful completion. That wave was always going to go excellent but Gabe thought it should go more. He stuck the 10 outstretched fingers up to the judges calling for the 10 point ride. Normally, when Gabe calls the 10, the judges comply. This time the score came in at a modest 8.17.
That 1.83 difference is vital to understanding Gabe’s current standing. That missing sliver represents the performance gap identified in a previous recap and the reason Gabe has not been able to close out a Final since April 2023. His last world title year in a COVID-disrupted 2021 schedule included two wins (Narrabeen and Rottnest) and closing out Finals Day against a rampaging Toledo. They were happy days with his first wife, and before familial breakdown and divorce. A different Gabe.
The maiden World Title year in 2014 featured wins at Snapper Rocks, Cloudbreak, and Chopes. The second title in 2018 also featured a trio of wins, this time at Chopes, Surf Ranch, and Pipe.
His runner up year in 2019 featured wins at J-Bay and Surf Ranch.
All of which is to say, this is a very, very good version of Gabe we are seeing but it’s not the world title version of yore. The cold competitive machine who carried an unbeatable aura and was prepared to do anything to win – no matter the rancour thrown back at him by public opinion.
Gabe (WSL/Poullenot)
Not much to say about the semi between Dora and Colapinto. Judges have been consistent all comp in paying handsomely the best waves ridden, regardless of degree of difficulty. The key skill set for Supertubos: getting yourself into position for those peachy, big open ones and coming out. Nothing too fancy required, just clean execution.
Griff got the bomb for a 7.83 and Dora could only find a couple of mid-range rides.
Yago (WSL/Poullenot)
Medina, Colapinto Final. There’s no fear from Griff regarding Medina. He’s had his number here before and after scrapping for the opening ride which went close to excellent they traded off in close to perfect barrels.
Absolutely nothing wrong with Medina’s performance in the Final. Two excellent 8-point rides and change, each for masterful tube riding. Again though, just a tiny sliver of performance envelope missing when he needed it most.
Gabe (WSL/Poullenot)
There’s some yap about Griffin’s winning 9.43 ride. Unjustified IMO, I think judges got it right. It was the deepest and most technical ride of the heat, and it was on the best wave.
But Gabe had the opportunity to best it minutes later on a wide open left bomb. A metre or two deeper and if he put down a wild, alley oop judges would have been forced to award the 10 he demanded in the Semis. Griff a deserving winner of a classic Final.
What stands out in the rankings is not movement, but stasis. Apart from a small move up the rankings from 6 to 3 for Griff and Medina moving from 5 to 4, Portugal has resolved very little. Dora remains in yellow, Ferreira behind him. Fioravanti the only one to see a significant decline in fortunes.
Griff (WSL/Poullenot)
Onto the Philippines, nestled on the western edge of the Pacific, adjacent to the most productive typhoon factory on earth. It’s been a banner year for the tropical revolving storm – 30 named storms so far.
But we need more than a named storm in the West Pac to see Cloud 9 on the pump. Ideally they start in the southern extremities of the Marshalls or eastern Micronesia, bubble and deepen as they begin a westwards track – shoot the wide open window south of Guam and north of Yap and allow the westward winds to generate groundswell. Slowly, not too fast lest the fetch outruns itself and limits swell production.
There’s a reason they call it the Fickle-Pines. A lot has to go right, much can go wrong, and if it does you are looking at a lake.
At present, JTWC (Joint Typhoon Warning Centre) notes tropical storm 30W (In-Fa) in the Marshalls, north-west of Kwajalein atoll in the Ralik chain, on a developing trend with winds expected to intensify to hurricane force through the medium term. Track is tricky. It looks to wander around as it intensifies, possibly moving north before it tracks westwards towards Siargao, roughly 2,400 nautical miles to the west. In-Fa needs to keep moving westwards to make Cloud 9 pump before it begins any northwards movement and gets absorbed into the North Pacific storm track.
More to come on that.
Absent some extremely weird results in the Philippines, we need the North Pacific jet stream to settle into a more southwards El Niño mediated track and hope and pray it sends the appropriate big north-west swells needed to finish this season at pumping Pipeline.
That’s where this matter will be decided.
//STEVE SHEARER