Rest moves West Competition 

Rest Moves West

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All up, I think the day went really well and everyone I spoke to seems to have enjoyed it. I say that because there was a bit of doubt to start with. The mid May date for the comp was itself a re-run date following an earlier re-run attempt after a cancellation of the original date, and nobody really likes that. On top of that there was a change of venue from Rest Bay near Porthcawl (and nearer civilisation) to Freshwater West at the far reaches of Pembrokeshire in an attempt to get more reliable surf conditions. I think the name of the competition probably makes sense now. The only trouble was that the surf forecast was rather dubious despite the move. On top of that when I clambered out of the van on arrival it looked like it might rain or at least be grey and miserable for the day. At least the waves looked ok for now.

Soon everyone was unloading boats, meeting up and chatting with friends that they hadn’t seen since earlier comps while booking-in and having the boats scrutineered before assembling for the initial briefing by Andy.

The briefing was fairly standard: competition format, the importance of keeping to time, when to paddle out, what the various flags and signals were, safety stuff – that kind of thing.

One huge improvement over some comps I’ve been to was that there was a dedicated judging panel, removing the need for competitors to judge each other which meant more consistent judging and no need to keep an eye on a judging rota between heats. They’re both something that I really appreciate.

At 8:15 sharp the green flag went up and the hooter started for the first heat – the first of over forty heats that we’d get through over the day – and surfing started on a falling tide.

The wave conditions, whilst initially looking promising, had backed-off a bit between arrival and the start of surfing and were not quite as good as I’d hoped for but there were still some waves to be had. Everyone was in the same boat though in this regard, though not literally, obviously, and part of the skill is to make the best of the tricky-to-read waves. On the other hand, the sun had come out and it was starting to warm up. Now sunburn was likely to be a problem.

So, the day went on, heat after heat. In case you’ve not been to a comp before a typical heat starts on raising a green – for go – flag, a hooter is sounded to wake up the judges and the competitors start surfing. With five minutes of surfing remaining a further yellow flag is raised and the competitors start to worry about surfing harder or finding a wave. The yellow flag is also a signal for the surfers in the next heat to launch, paddle-out and get ready. Once time’s up the green and yellow flags come down to be replaced with a red one and another two honks of hooter are sounded to switch off the judges and save power. Surfing stops, at least for those that have noticed the flag because nobody on the water can hear the hooter, and that heat’s

competitors return to the beach and the next heat’s surfers move to where they think can get the best wave ready for the green flag again.

The judges, having scored up to the first ten waves for each competitor choose each two highest scoring waves and rank the competitors, 1st, 2nd and 3rd etc, before the tireless admin people whip away the score sheets to record the results and arrange the follow-up heats.

A comp is usually a pretty busy day for a competitor and, if you’ve entered more than a couple of categories can be quite fraught (I’d entered just two). The main thing for me is keeping an eye on the running order – which can change at short notice, managing to put the correct colour bib, which for me at least is harder than it looks, and looking out for my partner, who’d entered four categories, to help her get the right boat and bib to the launch point at the right time, especially in the case of back-to-back heats.

Because we’d started on a falling tide the launch point was getting further and further away throughout the morning which entailed lugging boats further and further down the beach only to bring them back up with the rising tide in the afternoon.

Surf conditions varied throughout the day as the water level moved over the uneven surface of the beach and fortunately there was a contestable wave all day although it was often a bit sneaky and hard to read.

Finally, after hours of running up and down and fretting, most of us who’d been knocked-out or otherwise finished, got changed into dry clothes and stopped to watch the paddlers who actually knew what they were doing fight it out in the finals.

Once the competition was done and the finals run there was a bit more lugging of boats back up into the car park, loading and tidying before the wrap-up and trophy giving - this time some rather fancy looking blue and green acrylic waves mounted on wooden blocks. There was lots of clapping, a bit of good-natured ribbing and even a bit of chocolate cake. I’d love to say that I returned home laden with trophies but it was not to be. I came home with sunburn.