The Cribbar breaks rarely…perhaps a few times a year… if you’re lucky.

Unless you live close to Newquay and keep a keen eye on the surf reports the chances are, you could miss it. The reason it breaks so rarely isn’t (as far as I’m aware) about voodoo or spells, it is just that alot of factors have to come into play simultaneously in order to create the right conditions.

Good surfable waves at the Cribbar are not just about a big swell, but also about the swell direction, the wind speed, and direction of that wind…all of these things come into play. Once you have all of these things happening, the next ingredient you need are surfers skilled and crazy enough to surf it!

On the 30th of October it was one of those lucky days.

When I got up I noticed that even the weather was exceptionally warm for the time year. As I looked out of my window I could see large crowds gathering up on the headland. I left the flat and was glad I bothered to lug a heavy camcorder and tripod up the headland, because when I looked down over Cribbar rocks mother nature had decided to conjure up near perfect big wave surf conditions.

30ft faces smashed down a 100m away, there were bright blue skies and the atmosphere was electric. People hooted and cheered, it was like a Cornish version of Half Moon Bay, this was our Mavericks.

And to top it all there were guys like Ben Skinner and Richie Sills, amped up to tow in to monster waves.

Report ctd..

Around 100 excited onlookers watched as surfers used jet skis to tow into the huge waves that rolled in from the mid Atlantic.

Richie Sills and Ben Skinner charged. Each time a surfer made a wave and huge cheer went up. I’ve never seen so many people taking photos.

The standard of big wave surfing in the UK has gone form strength to strength in recent years and more and more of the local crew in Newquay have got involved with tow in and surfing big waves here as well as in Scotland and Ireland.

When the Cribbar is on it’s our Mavericks and the atmosphere on the headland was electric. People witnessed high-performance, world class big wave surfing right on their door step in Newquay.

The guys put it all on the line with some critical surfing, even getting barrelled on huge sets.

Ben Skinner (perhaps the greatest all round surfer in the UK ) even threw in some little chop-hop tricks.

Your average surfer would probably drown if they tried to surf out there and these guys are did tricks!

There was even someone paddling in on an SUP, but he seemed to get caught inside and took a few on the head ( see pic below). It looked like he lost his paddle and had to come in.

Here’s what the conditions looked like on paper:

• 14-15ft swell16 sec wave period
• 15-20mph cross/ offshore wind
• Breaking wave face estimate 18-30ft

Well, if it looks like that again, you can be sure the boys will be out – but we may have to wait a while!

English Nationals Surf Competition Postponed

Well the bad news this weekend in Newquay was that the English Nationals at Watergate Bay was cancelled due to poor surf. It would be fair to say that the surf picked up a bit towards Saturday afternoon but the morning conditions from Friday through to Monday were pretty dire…
Read more on the BBC website here

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Braa Boys, Slater & Taj surf OURS

Mark Mathews, Taj Burrow, Richie Vas and Kelly Slater Surf Ours. Some sick action in this video – the ‘invite only’ break looks particularly heavy and dangerous in this video footage by Jacob Wooden

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The 2011 Billabong XXL awards held this week in California

The winners were:

• Danilo Couto – Ride of the Year
• Benjamin Sanchis – Biggest Wave
• Shane Dorian – Monster Paddle
• Shane Dorian – Monster Tube
• Mark Mathews – Wipe-out of the Year
• Keala Kennelly - Girls Overall Performance
• Sion Milosky – Mens Overall Performance

Check out Benjamin Sanchis’ biggest wave video on the Billabong XXL website here

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Sally Fitzgibbons makes ASP Women’s World No. 1 position

20 year old Sally Fitzgibbons is on fire at the moment. After her convincing win at Bells Beach a couple of weeks ago the young surfer has gone on to win the ASP Subaru Pro TSB Bank Women’s Surf Festival in Taranaki, New Zealand. ASP rookie Tyler Wright (who is still only 17) is also looking like one to watch this year with a 3rd place finish.

Read more on Surfer here

JLC becomes a pro -surfer? Well sort of!

Some folks may have seen this when it was originally broadcast on Sky TV in 2009. Its Justin Lee Collins / JLC’s brave attempt to learn to surf from scratch and then enter a UK PST surf comp a few weeks later (having spent some time away from the ocean in between).

Silly idea? Yes… Impossible to compete with pros in that time? Well…Yes. But that said, there is some good stuff in here, and I think the comedian/ presenter does genuinely capture the essence of why people get drawn into surfing…especially in the early stages. It certainly helps to show the common battles any beginner faces in the water – physical and psychological.

Sure, there are a few cringy surfing cliches banded about here and there – but that’s entertainment for you. Overall its a feel good TV show on British surfing filmed at Watergate Bay, Newquay and North Devon. Making appearances are a few local Newquay folks too: Russell Winter, Chris Thomson of Errant as well as Josh Hughes – looking very fresh faced. The episode is on YouTube in 5 parts so I thought I’d just paste it all in one place to make it a bit easier to watch. Enjoy

Oh yeah…if you take a look you’ll see JLC is still listed on the UK Pro Surf Tour website >> here – haha

Video footage of the women’s 2010 Animal surf competition held at Fistral beach, Newquay. The video includes surfers Tassy Swallow (1st( who won the competition  – as well as Joanne Dennison (2nd), Beth Mason (3rd) and Nicole Morgan (4th place).

It also features Gabi Rowe receiving her award for highest scored wave as well as surfer Laura Crane, Gwen Spurlock and more.

Watch video below!

On Sunday the 14/11/2010 the Cornish weather gave us a bit of everything it had during the Animal 2010 competition final day. In the afternoon the sky was a dark-grey , rain poured down whilst a moderate onshore wind made filming very difficult.  Then as the day went on things calmed down a little – though it was certainly a cold one for those watching, photographing or filming on the beach – but the waves were fairly decent for a competition, so the surfers certainly made no complaints!

2010 Animal Open Womens Final Results

1. Tassy Swallow (St. Ives)
2. Jo Dennison (Freshwater)
3. Beth Mason (Swansea)
4. Nicole Morgan (Northern Ireland)

The music featured in this video is the track ‘Stand in your mold’ by The Drowning Men. You can buy their music on Amazon here.

Don’t usually post 3rd party video here – but this is quite cool. If you haven’t seen the Mirage Boardshort Video by Rip Curl (which has some sick 360 degree shots of surfers in it) you can check it out below.

How is this done?

People seem to be fascinated by how you create this kind of footage – so will try and explain how it may have been done.

This technique was first made popular in the movie the Matrix with Point Break star Keanu Reeves…I think he was saving the world from evil people again.

Now you can get a 360 illusion with a single VR panoramic still and then quickly pan it from left to right across the screen – this creates a 3D type illusion that can look ok but only for a fraction of a second – it’s certainly not as impressive as what is going on here and as far as I’m aware there is no single 360 degree type camera that can create this effect on its own.

360 degree video has been around for many years. This is not to be confused with 3D. 360 video simply created a video version of what you could do with still 360 panoramic VRs. The video footage was streamed in an applet which the user could then scroll around to look left and right of the viewable area (as well as up and down).  This was a bit of a gimmick I feel and it never really took off in a big way. Maybe because it was i/ a bit pointless and ii/ made you a bit dizzy watching it – it also seemed to crash the browser too.

The way the effect with the surfer is achieved:

This cool 360 Matrix effect with the surfers I believe is a multiple camera job. The only way I can explain is to get bit geeky and use a graphic – see below.

To do a full 360 piece each camera shoots a still image all at the same time. So this could be say 25 cameras all shooting at relative angles. By taking the photo all at the same time this allows a 360 degree moment to be created. If you play back all of the stills one after the other (which for 25 photos would create a standard 1 sec – 25 frame standard video) the effect of the frames passing in front your eyes should look like the 360 degree style matrix footage. Thus camera 1 shot = frame 1, camera 2 shot = frame 2 and so on.

Now the practicalities of doing this as a full 360 with a surfer are limited and of course you would start having to hide the cameras if one was shooting opposite the other. So for practical purposes in this Rip Curl video only about 90-180 degrees is actually being shot and played back then it cuts  – there is no full 360 effect happening but the illusion is still creating the look nonetheless!

Not the easiest thing to copy on a budget – unless anyone else can figure out a way how?

With double to triple overhead waves smashing into Fistral beach and against the Cribbar rocks in Newquay on Tuesday the 5th of October – it was certainly no day for Captain Calamity to be at sea

With a pretty unfavourable wind making surfing at Fistral beach or at the Cribbar pretty impossible, the surfing action moved to Towan bay and the Harbour wall in Newquay.

Watch the video below!

The music featured in this video is the awesome track ‘Get a heart’ by The Drowning Men. You can buy their music on Amazon here.

As the tide came in the wedge and backwash at Towan bay made for some interesting conditions for surfers and bodyboarders in the water. The waves surged in and then back off the wall from the bay (as well as wedging across) so surfers were thrown up into the air or wiping out in some pretty random ways  – this made for an interesting spectacle for those watching from the safety of the shore! Below are some NewquaySurfer.org photos taken in between filming – mainly of the bodyboarders surfing the backwash and wedge at Towan Bay.

30/9/2010 UPDATE: A week on and the boat incident has hit the national and local news. With full page spreads in the Neqwquay Voice and Cornish Guardian, Glenn’s story hasn’t stopped there because its also made it into the The Daily Mail, The Telegraph and The Mirror! I even saw it mentioned on Derren Brown’s blog – weird.

His quote is now legendary: “If you don’t capsize your not trying hard enough….Go hard or go home – thats my motto!” – Glenn

This doesn’t seem to have resonated much sympathy with some of the right wing press.

VIDEO: If you want to watch the original video footage NewquaySurfer filmed that day you can find it on the Telegraph website here.

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Original Blog Post starts here:

Down at Little Fistral in Newquay today while filming some of the guys surfing, a catamaran boat sailed into the bay area right through the line up of surfers and into the shallows. This seemed a bit odd because the surf was pretty chunky (overhead and fairly hollow) and things then went from bad to worse for the boat… and captain.

The moment disaster struck

Stokesy (and Tom Butler in particular) were unable to see the wreck as they make drops for waves.  They both manage to pull off some pretty sick surfing – inspite of having a live boat wreck infront of them! Fortunately no one was hurt… well, apart from ‘Mischief’ of course.

A keen sailor – Glenn Crawley is no stranger to incident in this particular vessel. His unique personal style of ‘extreme sailing’ has always been controversial. Some locals recall him launching out of Newquay harbour to sail the Cribbar when it was so big surfers were towing in!

You get the impression Newquay harbour master was never a great fan of Glenn’s ‘extreme sailing’. He once referring to Glenn as a ‘bloody menace’ 2 years ago. The RNLI also suggested he even find a new hobby, as rescuing him was costing them too much money! Anyway he’s certainly a character and a really nice guy, you just might not want to go sailing with him, though he has taken his boating license exam more than once!

I reckon life needs people like Glenn…a bit out there, eccentric, pursing their thing in their own way. So I reckon there’s almost something kind of quirky and tragic about today’s events – especially when you watch the video and you see him leaving the water with all that is left of his boat held in just two hands.

Photos:

Some interesting links to press articles that show how Glenn came to be known as ‘Captain Calamity’ (it’s quite an entertaining read)

Captain Calamity: The sailor rescued four times in four hours

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-553851/Captain-Calamity-The-sailor-rescued-times-hours-banned-harbour.html

Ban threat to ‘Captain Calamity’

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/7327332.stm

RNLI tell Captain Calamity: find a new hobby

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1560636/RNLI-tell-Captain-Calamity-find-a-new-hobby.html

Newquay bans solo yachtsman who can’t keep afloat

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/apr/03/3

‘Menace of sea’ in port ban

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article992331.ece

RIP Mischief 22/9/2010

Another video produced during a week of surf that saw some nice off-shore winds combine with sunshine and waves. Filmed primarily on two mornings at Fistral beach in Newquay I managed to capture a couple of the ‘older’ crowd showing everyone how its done.

Watch Grishka Roberts and Spencer Hargraves tear up Fistral beach alongside Mike Young who negotiates some heavy drops on his Santa Cruz pumpkin board.

Watch the video below

British Women’s champion Sarah Beardmore also pulled off some great turns on some pretty lively waves and watch out for a huge air boost by young Matt Rodwell, as well as longboarding featuring Candice O’ Donnell. For a while Fistral started looking like the North Shore of Hawaii – so the accompanying music by the legendary Who is suitably retro and mid seventies.  If you enjoy the track be sure to get yourself a copy of the awesome album Quadrophenia by The Who here

On the evening of Wednesday Sept 1st Newquay saw the first of 4-days of epic surfing conditions which saw overhead waves and offshore winds combine with plenty of sunshine, that made Newquay’s surf spots look more like Hawaii’s North shore than a UK seaside town.

On Friday evening on the 3/9/10 the tide dropped, the sun began to set and some of the best local pro surfers hit the water…then Fistral began to barrel. 

Watch the video below.

I climbed up onto the rocks at North Fistral and shot as much of these rare moments as I could. Filming with the sun in your eyes can be a bit tricky, but in this case was worth the effort The result was the following video ( above). This video is also featured on the extreme sports website Mpora.com

I think everyone agreed the guy who got the barrel of the day was Mitch Corbett

Surfers featured in this video:

• Johnny Fryer
• Mitch Corbett
• Olid Adams
• Tom Earl
• Matt Rodwell
• Luke Dillon
• Matt Caple
• Eugene Tollemache
• Russell Mullins
• Chris Owen
• Mark Harris

Videos you can buy featuring some of these UK surfers:

• Substance DVD – Watch the trailer on YouTube
• Land of Saints – Official website
• Performing Monkeys DVD – Watch trailer on YouTube
• Fusion Surf DVD – Read review on A1 Surf

Congratulations to Newquay’s Johnny Fryer who today won the Quiksilver 2010 Mens Open British Championship at Fistral beach. Watch the NewquaySurfer.org video of the 2 day event held at Fistral beach below:

Watch a video of the Mens Final Presentation below:

2010 British Surf Championships:

With only a small swell on the Saturday, competition conditions were extremely challenging for all concerned. However thankfully,  Sunday saw some improvement in the swell and an onshore wind helped generate some shoulder high waves throughout the day.

The mens final was pretty much an all Cornish affair with Johnny Fryer currently living in Newquay and Ollie Adams (Newquay), Jayce Robison from St Ives and Toby Donachie from St Merryn.

Mens Results: 1st Johnny Fryer 2nd Oli Adams 3rd Jayce Robinson 4th Toby Donachie

Sarah Beardmore wins the Womens Open British Championship:

Adding this success to her victory in the English Nationals WQS surfer Sarah Beardmore is having a pretty great season!

Watch the Women’s finalists presentation below:

Womens Results: 1st Sarah Beardmore 2nd Nicole Morgan 3rd Joanne Dennison 4th Tassy Swallow

(L-R) Sarah Beardmore, Nicole Morgan, Jo Dennison, Tassy Swallow (c) newquaysurfer.org