Dirty South Surf, Skim & SUP Surf Contest 2011
- March 7, 2011
- 0 Comments
- By Guest Photog
Kulcha Shok Muzik Pulls it off for the 4th time. It was 'Dirty' but that's how it goes down here in the South. 'Dirty South' surf, skim & SUP surf contest!
South Beach is synonymous with good north swells. The tough part is predicting them. I've lived here and surfed here since the 80's and it's tough still to this day to predict those good north swells. There's one scenario I know that's about a 90% guarantee. We'll leave that for another time.
My point is everyone wants the contest to go down on a good epic north swell on a weekend. Do you know the likelihood of being able to predict that? I think you have a better chance at the Florida lottery. So what ends up happening is some 'dirty' chop. We announce the opening of the window around the week of Thanksgiving. Once the wave window is opened, in order to successfully have the contest we hold it on the first predictable day of waves because forecasts change all the time. This year we didn't open the wave window until Jan 31, 2011. So the first predictable day of waves was Thursday March 5, 2011. When I announced it on Tuesday March 3 it looked like Thursday was the best day from the forecast. Waves picked up on Wednesday and started to make Thursday not look so good: good enough to still hold the contest. So with all said and done Friday and Saturday ended up being better than forecasted and better than Thursday. We stick to our philosophy of the first all day of predictable, contestable waves.
The 'Dirty South' surf contest started officially at 8:30am with the skim contest. Run by our sponsor and new skim shop Ally Oop out of Ft Lauderdale. We had to repeats in the finals: last years winner Danny Rodriguez and Carlitos Balbe. Josh Hill made the trek from Sarasota. It was a pretty well contested final until Josh pulled off a double rail grab flip and stuck it. He definitely showed the pro that he was. So Danny got second Carlitos third and Victor Barges. Josh won a Zap skimboard, our beautiful custom made trophies for the last 2 yrs courtesy of local surfer/metal artist Red and hand painted by artist Jonah, and goodie bag with Sun Bum, Quiksilver and Kulcha Shok product. Those Sun Bum towels are sick.
The SUP paddle race got canceled due to the heavy & rough conditions, no one really wanted to make the venture. So it was on with the SUP surf contest. The SUP division was sponsored and run by Fucata Sports home to Jimmy Lewis SUP boards. Garry came out and helped judge with head judge Jeremy Saukel & Gordon Smith. A pretty well contested final with everybody taking a bit of a beating. In the end, it was South Florida iron man Packet Casey taking the first place customized trophy, goodies bag and the $250 SUP paddle donated by Fucata home for first place. Coming all the way from Jupiter area was second place winner Greg Corbitt, and the local boys placed third & fourth, respectively, Jose Manuel Tomas and Morgan Blittner from the Kite Shop, one of our sponsors.
Now it was time to decide bragging rights for South Beach. The four teams at it were Miami Springs(33166) against LBS(33308), West Miami(33155), and South Beach/Downtown(33139/33137). So Springs took on LBS. Springs has a pretty good team of local surfers and has always had a contingent in the water: Lance Motsinger, Shane Ayash, Judah Gonzalez & Soulman took on LBS' Keahi Kam, Cappy Cheshier, Kenny Keating & Shane Hlavsa. These guys actually have always done pretty good in the 'Dirty South' surf contest. Cappy won the amateur mens and Keahi won Jr mens to go on to the pro division. It ends up Miami Springs was no competition on their home turf. Shayne(picture 1) did get a good wave. Lance didn't step up like he can. So in the other semi-final heat it was West Miami's Carlos Valdes, Raul Rivera(picture 2), Oscar Rodger and we thru in Casey Coote from Deerfield/Pompano so he had a team to surf on, because we don't want to deny anyone the opportunity to surf the contest, especially if they drive from far. Raul was the only one that scored a decent wave against what ended up being one of the best teams that could be assembled in Miami as the South Beach/Downtown team: Dave Begley, Alex Casal, Chucky Nohad and Jorge Matias. So it was South Beach's best against LBS's best.
The final was well contested with South Beach basically either leading or tied thru the whole final. Dave Begley(pics 3,4, 5), Al Casal(pics 6,7), Chucky(8) and Jorge aka Coco(pic 9) pretty much had it on locked. They noticed Shayne had only a 2.5 so they figured the strategy of sitting on him and no letting him get a good wave my work to hold on to the win. That left Cappy(10, 11) on the beach since he had an 8.5 early on. What South Beach didn't capitalize on was that Keahi Kam(pics 12, 13, 14) had a 5.0 and was trying to improve on that. He did in the last ten seconds he got a 7.5 to take the first and only lead of the final and win the thing by a combined score margin of .2. Keahi was the clutch that came thru to win it all. Now LBS has the bragging rights to South Beach for the next year, notice the trophy they hold for that time period(15) and the boards they won(16) courtesy of Quiksilver(who provided the 2 Simon Andersons) Cannibal, Erie and Enoch. 'had I seen those two Simon Andersons before the final, I would have taken it much more serious,' South Beach local & South Beam team member Dave-O.
I wanna know where were the Haulover guys: Ron Kendil, Arnie, Abe, and the rest of those rippers from up north. They were told but were they scared?
The Miami crew promises the trophy is coming backed to Miami next year.
Time will tell all...
All photos by Chris Beeman/Beeman Photos/ S2TW
Thanks to all the sponsors because they are the ones that provided the help and incentive to get these guys to compete. Special thanks to F1rst Surf Shop, Fuacata Sports, Ally Oop, Quiksilver, Erie Surfboards, Enoch Surfboards, Cannibal Surfboards, Dunkel Volk, Sun Bum, the Kite Shop, Dade County Surf, Zap skimboards, Gnarly Charley, Jimmy Lewis, So Board and a production of Kulcha Shok Muzik. Thanks to all the spectators, contestants, Judges, Mike Bloom, Miami Beach Lifeguards and all that helped to promote it.