Photo: Youtube
Getting skunked is all relative. When your best and most reliable home break is a beach that’s typically onshore and rarely sees anything over waist high, a chest-high day with a few corners is all-time. From that perspective, Supertubos would be absolutely firing this weekend when the WSL ran the first two days of the Rip Curl Pro Portugal. The only problem is Supertubos is not some beach in Florida that serves up knee-high dribble for months on end. And just last week the place was firing by all standards of the term. Countless freesurfs went down in well-overhead, barreling, waves most days.
Conditions at Supertubos often change drastically throughout a given day — not unlike plenty of sand-bottom waves around the world — but the place effectively shut down once the contest window opened compared to what we’d seen in the days leading up to it. The fact that the Men’s Opening Round, Elimination Round, and three heats from the Round of 32 were run right out the gate with the women surfing all the way up to setting Semifinal matchups, is a strong indication that the contest organizers aren’t excited about the rest of the forecast.
Championship Tour surfers are surfers above all else though. So while I’m sure they’d all love the chance to score an empty Supertubos lineup a few times during their heats, they can all at least say they got some proper tubes out of their latest trip to Peniche. The Colapinto brothers were no exception to that frenzy last week, coming up on a few good freesurfs and one particular session that jumped into the eight to 10-foot range. Crosby Colapinto returned to action after missing the first two events of the season and fell to Liam O’Brien in the Round of 32. Griffin, meanwhile, advanced straight to the Round of 32 after leading his Opening Round heat and is awaiting his next surf when competition continues.
Dreamy stuff in those freesurfs though, even if the Dream Tour can’t catch it during a contest window.
