Sebastian Zietz has shown up to Bells and announced to Australia that he is looking to dominate. Here he is picking up the remains of his board after destroying it in the second round at the RipCurl Pro at Bells Beach. He had the heat wrapped up against Travis Logie before he broke it in the last few minutes.
You can watch the event live online at live.ripcurl.com
With all the forecasts pointing to a dropping swell and swamped out early tides, I decided to go against all warnings of bad surf and go check out Imperial Beach early this morning. I was very happy to see one of those rare winter sights of 4-6 foot faces with plumes of mist shooting off the back of the waves from the offshore Santa Ana winds.
As I was slipping on my wet wetsuit, I spotted two halves of a ‘Safety Orange’ Rusty on the other side of the truck next to me. I struck up a conversation with the breaker of the board, his name was Wes. As it turns out, Wes was on the wave right behind the one above, and got clipped by the lip as he turned back up on his bottom turn. I saw him get clipped, but didn’t see his board break.
Well Wes, I know you loved your Rusty. But now you’re famous on the internet. That won’t buy you a new board. But you can claim some mad dog cred for shredding so hard, you broke your stick!
Pin It
Poor Joel Parkinson. This trip to France hasn’t been an enjoyable one for him. In his very first heat, he broke his board. Then spent 8 minutes on a scenic tour of the inside, getting stuck in strong currents, and wave after wave. He did not catch another wave in that heat, and was forced to surf in Round 2.
In Round 2, he only mustered a couple mid range 4′s and he eventually lost to wildcard surfer Ramzi Boukheim from Morrocco.
Poor Joel. You were on my Fantasy Surfer line-up too dude.
Here’s Luke Egan stealing Joel’s busted board from some French gremmies. (Just kidding – I think he just went to unscrew the fins, and give the board back).
With the Billabong Pro at Teahupoo scheduling a lay day in order to score the cranking South Pac monster swell headed their way later in the week, I’ve been doing some itchy internet surfing for pictures to share with you here.
I found this great project put together by Christopher Anderson, who is chronicling his progress of collecting of 1000 broken surfboards to create the real thing of the above sketch at Garie Beach in New South Wales.
The intent is to bring awareness of the thousands of boards that are disposed of and put in landfills each year. I can totally get behind that. Christopher also blogs about ways to re-use those broken boards you have. Definitely check out his site, and throw him some cash so he can build his collection. He’s at 100 now. Check out his pile…
Not sure what these aggro South Americans are eating, but between Peruvian Sofia Mulanovich destroying her deck, and Brazil’s Adriano De Souza’s bashing a heavy Bells Bowl lip – losing his tail in the process, it’s got to be potent.
Funny thing is both of them went on to win their heat.
Sofia didn’t quite make it to the finals where Aussie Sally Fitzgibbons got to ring her first Bell. Adriano is now on to the quarterfinals to meet with Kelly Slater.
Here is Adriano floating down into the soup with the remnants of his board.
South African reporter Rosy Hodge managed to wrestle the leftovers of Adriano’s board from one of the kids on the beach to show the annihilation.
Adriano being a consummate professional and signing his busted board for a frothing grom for a souvenir after winning his heat and making it into the quarters.
