Cornish Open

It wasn’t looking great when we got to Godrevy Saturday morning as it was very windy and although the sun was out it wasn’t very warm.

After I’d signed in I walked up onto the cliff and had a look at the surf.   It didn’t look too bad although the wind was off shore and it was blowing the tops off the waves.

I went back down to the car park and after the briefing helped carry the judging equipment up to the cliff and as I wasn’t on for quite awhile I stayed around and helped out with the judging for the first heat.  It looked like it wasn’t easy to get on a wave although it didn’t look too bad when you managed to get on it.  I had entered in the junior short and long but as only a few had entered in the junior long I was allowed to enter in another category so I chose open long.

I got my boats down to the cliff in preparation for my heats ‘though mine weren’t on till about lunch time.  My first heat was the junior short final.  The tide had come in quite a bit so it was tricky to get down the cliff path and I had to take both of my boats down to the beach as the open long was the following heat.  On the water we had to wait quite awhile for the heat to start.  The surf was nice but the spray was blowing back in my face when I was on the wave so I had to rely on the feel of the wave sometimes to time my turns.  I had a couple of really nice rides.  Finally I think I have got my fins in the right place as I have been fiddling around with them and since I got back from the Worlds I have tried putting them in a completely different place.   As the heat ended I rushed back to the beach, changed bibs, grabbed my other boat and then got out back just in time.   I had some good rides but they weren’t good enough and I came 4th.

I then had a bit of time to spare before my next  heat, the junior long final, so I had a bite to eat and watched everybody else surfing and there were some nice rides to watch.

At last the junior long final arrived and we got down onto the beach.  The surf wasn’t looking very good by this time although it looked as if there were a few nice rides to be had if you waited for the right one. When the heat got started a set had just gone past so I had a few rides on the inside but I didn’t think they were that good.  Then some better waves arrived and I had  a few nice rides and quite a few bad ones as well!  Most of the waves that I caught were peeling with a shoulder and no lip to go for at the end although there were a couple that I caught, that weren’t quite as long, that had a breaking lip to finish on.  There were only a couple of heats left after my last one so I went and got changed and got back to the judging site just in time to watch the men’s short final which was good to watch.  Then everybody helped take all the judging equipment back to the car park and we had the prize giving.

I came second in the Junior short and to my pleasant surprise I won the Junior long!  It was the first time I had won it so I was very happy!  I think that it was a good finish for the year for me, putting me in second place on the England ranking list in the short boat and third in the long boat.  Roll on next year!