BIG NAMES TO BATTLE IN SOLID 4FT WAVES TODAY!

Wednesday, August 6, 2008:
Some solid four to five foot (1.2 to 1.5 meter) waves are breaking for Day 2 of competition and all top seeds will paddle out in order to complete the 24-Heat round. With 25-minute battles, officials aim at completing 10 hours of contest today and the last 48 men in the Rip Curl Boardmasters will be known tonight. UK surfers Jayce Robinson, Oli Adams, Matt Capel and Alan Stokes will be battling it out for a spot in the next round.

South African David Weare put the demons to rest and won this years Rip Curl Boardmasters. Last year he was runner up, this time he won with 16.37 points to Corey Zeims' 13.00. Very small conditions produced a tense final with the lead changing three times in the space of 30 minutes. Small pulses of swell produced rippable waves that offered both rights and lefts.

Surfing resumed on Thursday morning after the Women's Quarters with six Round 3 heats held in 2-3ft surf at Fistral before competition was postponed by Contest Director, Dave Reed, when the massive tidal change made conditions deteriorate. In low tide the conditions, the wave breaks on a bank infront of a hole leading to the wave fattening out, making it difficult to surf.

The four heats of the quarter finals of the women's Tampax Compak Fresh Pro WQS were held first thing on Thursday morning. The heats were exciting with the usual suspects devastating the competition. Despite peaky conditions, the highest wave scores so far in the comp were acheived.

The sun was shining and the beach was packed with bikini clad babes but it was a bad day for the Brits as the last of the reps were knocked out by heat 11. The wind had dropped so there was none of the wind generated swell around, the surfers had to make do with 2ft waves. Lack of swell meant that it was hard to find good waves, even a bit of tactics came into play!

The men's heats started early and with 24 heats to get through it was going to be a long day. The sun was shining but unfortunately the wind was strong which made for a head high but very junky and messy swell. The judges granted extra time to paddle out it was that messy. Looking down the south end of Fistral where the 'normal' surfers would be in large numbers when there is a wave and there was nobody... The few that had a go over the day, struggled to paddle out and seldom caught anything.