Bass Strait Stand Up Paddle Club: Sunday November 11th 2012

Sparx had been keeping his eye on our planned comp site for the week leading up to our last surfing event for 2012. After some late night phone calls, texts and emails on the Friday, the call was made to shift from 'Smitties' at Ocean Grove around to 'The Ant' at 13th Beach.

The shift paid off big time and we got cracking little waist to shoulder high waves, offshore winds, sunshine, lefts and rights and a nice timber platform and boardwalk for Bass SUP base camp.

The tent was setup, registrations were taken and the heat list was drawn up as quick as possible. The contest briefing was given and the hooter sounded for round one, heat one.

Round one had four randomly drawn heats where 17 surfers of mixed ages, genders and skill levels battled it out together and then their scores were used to decide the round two heat order.

I won't bore you with a blow by blow, we flew through the 20 minute heats to make the most of the conditions, only stopping for a minutes silence between rounds. Matt Takle took out top honors for the day and you can check the rest of the results at the end of the pics.

A few other highlights of the day were:

Chris Clark's vertical attack;
John Lane's classic drop knee cutties;
Matt and John Takle splitting a wave in the 'penultimate heat' and shredding it both ways;
The Juniors James and Kristi getting amongst it and seeing James shredding on his shorty between heats;
Seeing Sparx go right for a change;
Nick and Leon's classic commentary from the judging table;
Dark horse Mick Smith taking it to Sparx and the Takles in the 'final';