With a 12-day waiting period and back-to-back swells in the first week, everybody showed up early to this well-known, tubing Mexican beachbreak, anticipating an active little run of surf. The first swell was already pulsing at full steam on day one, so the event was a go right off the bat. Blue tubes spit well into the noon hour, and it ended up being some of the best surf we saw all week.
The format was special in that everybody got to surf twice regardless, and take their best two scores from each heat to determine a cut from 30 surfers to 12. Those 12 surfed another round, added on two more scores to whittle the field to six guys. Then the finalists added on two more scores and the total culmination determined the winner. Along the way, your best score from the first round was doubled and again in the final. The ultimate idea was for the guy with the best, homerun-type waves to win.
Day one of the event dawned with some wonk to the swell, but it was solid. Some sets were pushing the 10-foot mark. Conditions were tricky, though. It wasn't exactly one of those mornings that make you dizzy because your head is spinning around in every direction looking at insane waves. It was a hunt; the diamond-in-the-rough kind of morning -- and there were indeed some diamonds. And some rough.
Nathan Hedge kicked the morning off in the first heat and found a good rhythm and bagged two nice waves, along with Nils Schweizer. Brian Conley followed with some quality tubes in the third heat, and the fourth heat saw the waves of the swell.
Two rights in a row, every bit of 10 feet and as round and long as possible...just ridiculous waves. Shannon 'Hopper' Eichsteadt was originally in the spot, but moved a bit when a rip passed through. Reluctantly, he watched two waves that would have been easy perfect 10s spin off. Gabriel Villeran, who you can always count to be on the best waves, got two nice rides in the final heat of the morning just before the wind shut down the later part of that heat.
So after the first morning only five guys really had two good scores and a lot of people were left playing catch up. But with the innovative format, it allowed time for that.
The next rounds were scattered over a couple different mornings because Mother Nature dished up some tricky weather. One morning had wonky morning sickness until about 10:00am, and then it cleaned up. But it was determined too late in the day to call the comp on because of the likelihood of onshore wind. However, it stayed glassy and fired until 2:00pm and everybody got insane waves freesurfing instead.
In the crystal-clear hindsight, it would've been good to run, but c'est la vie...everybody was happy to get tubed. Conditions stayed tricky for the next two days with dying swell and irregular winds, but great waves were available in different pulsing windows. Gabriel Villeran added two great scores. Young tube savants Nic Von Rupp and Diego Silva also added big scores to their totals and put them into the top spots when the cutoff was made to 12.
Swell number two filled in over the weekend and the semis and finals took place over Sunday and Monday in fun four- to six-foot surf. Ultimately, it was Villeran, Von Rupp, Silva, Conley, Schweizer and Hedgy in the final. Conley, Schweizer and Hedgy had been on consistent runs with decent scores in all their heats, but ultimately were lacking those 9.0s that Von Rupp, Villaran and Silva were sitting on from the first round. But with another top score doubled in the final, it was all still doable for anybody -- once again paying off if you got a massive score.
And that's what Von Rupp did. He put up another big one in the slightly inconsistent final, keeping his wave-magnet run going. And ultimately stepped further onto the scene as one of the top young tuberiders in the biz.
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