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TERIITEHAU DOUBLE LOOPS INTO ROUND THREE AT HO'OKIPA & DUNKERBECK ADVANCES OVER KALAMA
By Julian Yeomans
It was another tough day at the office for the world's elite wave sailors as they battled it out in varying conditions here at the 1999 PWA Swatch Aloha Classic. In mast high plus waves and winds which blew slightly onshore and then died to a light offshore breeze in the afternoon the likes of Nik Baker, Scott Fenton, Robby Naish, Bjorn Dunkerbeck, Matt Pritchard and Josh Angulo all advanced into the quarter finals.
Conditions today were very unpredictable as huge rainsqualls played havoc with the wind and caused several heats to be abandoned. The morning started out with 20-knot onshore winds however and Robert Teriitehau, the renowned wild man from New Caledonia, started the day by launching into one of his trademark incredible stalled double forward loops in his heat against Micah
Buzianis. Teriitaehau, who recently made a name for himself after performing numerous double forwards at the PWA Sylt Grand Slam, also scored highly in the waves and advanced into the last sixteen. In the same heat Jason Polakow had a battle on his hands against his own his team rider, the highly rated and enormously talented Levi Siver. Despite some insane wave riding and a huge one handed back loop from Siver, Polakow managed to pull out the stops and draw on his competition experience to match Sivers performance. The decision was close but Polakow had caught the best waves of the heat and went through to the next round.
Next on the water was the first round of the woman's single elimination and with regular rainsqualls interrupting the proceedings, conditions out on the water in the huge waves became extremely difficult. Advancing into the second round from the women were Cecily Kitts, Jenny Ellefson, Tsugmi Takagi, Jocelyn Hrkach, Kelly Moore, Renata Fuzetti, Nina Heiberg and Jennifer Henderson. Kelly Moore had a particularly outstanding performance and caught several mast high plus set waves riding them without fear right infront of the infamous Ho'okipa rocks.
By mid afternoon the wind had become very light and switched to cross offshore and with mast high waves the conditions were epic for no compromise down the line wave riding. Head wave judge Klaus Michael decided to extend heats for the men's third round to fifteen minutes with a five minute transition period to give sailors enough time to make it out through the waves and get upwind to the judging area.
In the first heat of the third round Nik Baker advanced over Jason Stone whilst Scott Fenton won a tough battle against Sean Ordonez. Baker struggled for much of the heat against Stone but managed to pick out three of the big set waves which he rode in his typical aggressive style, from 'Middles' all the way through to the end section off the rocks. Scott Fenton meanwhile seemed to be picking off all the big waves of the heat and landed several big aerials off the point to convincingly eliminate Ordonez who seemed to be having difficulty in the light winds.
In the next heat Californian sailor Matt Pritchard earned his place into the quarter finals following an awesome display of huge rooster tail slashes right in the critical section on the mast high set waves. His opponent Antoine Albeau stood little chance as Pritchard was 'on fire' and probably sailed the best scoring heat of the afternoon. In the same heat it was a battle of the titans with Bjorn Dunkerbeck up against the legendary Hawaiian big wave guru Dave Kalama. Dunkerbeck, who spends much of his time training in Hawaii, was able to pull of the big moves at the right moments and scored highly picking up three big set waves in the fifteen-minute heat. Kalama did not seem to have the same luck with his wave selection and was unable to reply to the powerful performance from the current World Champion.
In the final heat of the day Robby Naish who has won more Aloha Classic titles than any other sailor took on Japanese sailor Hisao Nakazato whilst Josh Angulo the radical Hawaiian faced the powerful German Robby Seeger. In the extreme light wind conditions all the sailors were obviously having a difficult time making their way upwind to the main peak at 'Middles' and wave selection was a vital part of the sailors competition strategy. Robby Naish was forced to use all of his years of competition experience to defeat a brave challenge from Nakazato and managed to land the only aerial of the heat which obviously scored highly with the five man judging panel.
The heat between Angulo and Seeger could have gone either way and Seeger probably lost it after a gnarly looking wipe out on a huge mast high section of his last wave. Josh Angulo will now face Robby Naish in the quarterfinals in what promises to be an awesome confrontation.
Tomorrow promises to be a day of spectacular action and first on the water will be the last heat of the third round which features wave specialist Francisco Goya versus the big Swede, Anders Bringdal whilst World Wave Champion, Jason Polakow faces French wild man, Robert Teriitehau.
Scott Fenton " It was tricky out there today, the winds were gusty on and off with this storm system happening and I was finding it hard to bottom turn, go vertical and really get any power off the top. Any heat in any round here is a hard heat so I am pretty happy to have made it this far, it was good fun, good waves!"
Nik Baker " The waves were nice, really nice but the winds were really gusty, onshore, offshore and very, very light. When they got to my heat it really dropped off and I could hardly catch a wave. I managed to catch one big wave at the end of my heat, which I think clinched it for me. It must have been enough, I am absolutely stoked to get through. I have a hard heat now, Scott was sailing unreal"
Robby Naish "It was hard work out there, I did not enjoy that. If you got a good wave out there you were lucky, you could not buy a wave out there! Even with a half hour heat it would have been tough"
Josh Angulo " Shifty waves, a couple of bowls, it was hard work out there. I did OK but Seeger sailed well also. It was hard to read the waves, I would get on a wave I thought was going to be shitty and it would wall up and be good and I would get on a good wave and it would go shitty and I was just like 'wow what is going on' It was close!
Kelly Moore "It was great, it was epic out there, I loved it!"
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