Quiksilver Pro - New York

September 08, 2011

Absolutely SICK! No other way to describe it.

Quiksilver really rolled the dice on this one. The first ever ASP event held on the east coast. Hopefully they'd have waves. What if they didn't? It wouldn't bode well for the world's view and opinions of east coast surf. Lots on the line, but with the opportunity of hosting an event outside the largest media market in the world, Quik was willing to take the chance.

But it wasn't ALL left to chance. Quik hired expert surf forecaster, Sean Collins to give them the best chance for success. Sean combed through 15 years of hurricane data and determined that the most optimum time period for swell historically was September 10th. Enter Katia.

If this hurricane was simply graded on punctuality, it would score a perfect 10. The Long Beach finals were held on the peak of the swell which landed on... yes, September 10th. It takes 4 to 5 days to hold an ASP event, so the crew at Quik started working backward from the 10th. They absolutely scored. Great waves, great crowd, stoked surfers, all with the richest payout in surf history on the line.

The preliminary heats on Wednesday and Thursday were certainly exciting. The waves were decent, though the wind was a little onshore. The crowd was a little thinner making autographs a little easier to come by. Then the morning of the finals arrived and that's when Long Beach and the swell really shined. Blue skies, offshore breeze and 6 to 8 foot surf created the most spectacular setting that anyone at Quik could have imagined.

Next, enter Kelly. Leading the world title race coming off a win in Tahiti, being a native east coaster and surfing in his primary sponsor's biggest event of the year. Good thing Kelly eats pressure for every meal of every day. He loves it. He narrowly beat Jeremy Flores in the quarter finals, then narrowly beat Taj Burrow in the semis after posting a perfect 10 point ride (needing a 9.8 or higher) with only minutes left in the heat.

Now enter the re-match. Kelly had made it to the finals only to face the man he beat in the prior event, Owen Wright. Owen came out swinging hard firing three insane aerial floaters on his forehand to put Slater on the ropes once again. This time Kelly wouldn't be able to come back and the event went to Wright. His first ASP victory and $300K richer. He embodied "stoked". Owen seems like an awesome guy who was super cool with the crowd and carried the personality that will make him a likable surfer that crowds will enjoy supporting for a long time to come.

Outside of watching all the world-class surfing performances live from the beach, some of the personal highlights for me were 1) meeting Martin Potter in the Allegria bar, 2) buying Jeff Hackman a rum and coke, 3) spotting Titus Kinimaka in the Quiksilver retail shop, 4) getting Peter Mel's autograph, 5) buying dinner for Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson, 6) capturing 60 minutes of surfing footage from inside the high tide line, and lastly, knowing the event is coming back in 2012. See you all then.

Quiksilver Pro - New York

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