Saltburn for the Weekend

The UK Pro Surf Tour gets under way this weekend, with the first event up at Saltburn. Forecast is looking just a tad flat but a well run event should be fun for all and there'll be a good buzz about town this weekend.

Getting there: A174 from the Boro to Saltburn seafront. Park down the hill at the surf shop & pier. Popular centre of surfing in N. Yorks. This is a fairly weak beach-break, with the better peaks focussed around the pier, which you can jump off to avoid a paddle out. They take swell from most directions, and like southwest winds. Pretty handy and there's a surf shop by the pier. As busy as you'd expect.

"Heading east down the beach to the Ship Inn, on the A174, you'll find Penny Hole; quality beach-break left and rights (with some hollow lined up lefts often the best pick). Across the channel from this, under the cliffs and receiving their protection from easterly wind, is a right-hand reef/point off the Saltburn Scar. Expect to see it work well on south to southeast breezes and solid northeast swells. 2-8ft plus. Advanced.

Try Coatham Sands up past Redcar for a low power beach-break option in south winds and any east swell. On the way up, seek out the Redcar Scars, location of some steep but rare reef break peaks for advanced surfers.

Down south, Skinningrove can host a fickle right-hand reef, and some beach-break peaks, all working best on a southerly wind."

Click here for more info on surf spots around the UK & Ireland.

Surf Spot Guide: Trestles

Talk about classic Southern California waves and Trestles is usually one of the first to get a mention. This week it'll be top of the list as the Nike 6.0 Lowers Pro hits the beach. With the new ASP World Ranking system in play this season and the fact that the event is a 6 Star Prime, there's a good number of WCT guys showing up looking for a few extra ratings points. Surf report looks like small but clean and fun waves for the week, so reckon it could be good for Jordy, Dane and crew. Anyway, here's a little extra info for you on the surf spots at Trestles.

"Just north of the San Onofre State Beach, adjacent to the train trestle. One of the world's best surfing arenas. Running continuously from San Mateo Point to San Onofre State Beach.

Cotton's: Lined up left-hander good in big south to southwest swells. Breaks over cobblestone and sand bottom on any tide, but lower is hollower. Holds 2-12ft plus. All levels.

Uppers (Upper Trestles): Superb quality, long (mostly) right-hand cobblestone point wave. Works best on a wrapped northwest to west winter swell at higher tides, when there will be multi-second barrels firing down the beach towards San Mateo Creek. It'll work well on south swell too though. Any tide is OK. 2-10ft plus. All levels. Best in winter ... generally. Crowded with mini-tankers.

Lowers: Left and right cobblestone peak. Long rights in winter swells from NW, awesome fast peak left and rights in summer south swells. Generally both lefts and rights have 3 sections, with the first (outside) being more hollow. Rights often longer/lined up, and longer than Uppers. Lefts punchy and good channel to paddle back from. Any tide is OK, but low tide plus summer swell and morning off-shore = hollow green barrels at high speed. 2-15ft. Very crowded. Usually better than Uppers in summer, and vice versa.

Down from here is Middles: Mellow right-left summer peak needing northeast winds and any swell. All tides. Low is better as it can be a mush-burger at the best of times. If your surfing isn't working here, get a new board, or a coach"

Click here for more info on surf spots around the USA.

58 degrees North - Thurso East

The Northern tip of the UK is getting set to welcome some of the world's top surfers as the O'Neill CWC Scotland starts its waiting period at Thurso tomorrow. Following one of the coldest European winters on record the water temp will be uncomfortably low and may shock some of those more used to surfing Hawaii's North Shore. Sunny Garcia and John John Florence will be fully suited up and joined by a crew of ex-WCT guys like Marlon Lipke, Aritz Aranburu & Tim Boal. There's also a good bunch of UK surfers including former WCT pro Russell Winter and current UK Pro Surf Champ Alan Stokes.

There's a decent swell predicted for later this week so we're looking forward to seeing some classic Thurso conditions. Here's our take on one of the UK's best waves:

"Thurso East: Lined up, often perfect, long reef break that delivers square pits best on very solid West to Northwest swells (North more lumpy and fun, but big Wests deliver the barrels and often come with nice southerly air-flow). On low to mid it's a relatively easy if tight take-off, then an incredibly hollow, fast bowl section. Mid tide is when it hits the ledge at the perfect depth to toss up wide barrels. The reef sits close to your fins; disconcerting on a winters day with the water at 5 degrees and flakes of snow floating about! Summer visitors might get disappointed because the reefs don't pick up the swell unless it's big, or straight out of the North-Northwest. The prevailing south-westerlies are cross-shore so a lot of the time there's a feathered lip firing spray into your eyes. Advanced, 2-8ft plus. Not always crowded, but tight take-off spot means it can't handle numbers.

At the turn of the last century the middle of the reef was dynamited for boat access, and this area now forms a nasty lump; imaging how long the wave would be if Thurso hadn't been a fishing port! There are quality reefs to be had out in the bay and around towards Castletown, some of them named and handling considerable size, others hardly ridden."

Click here for more info on surf spots around the UK & Ireland.

Margaret River: Surfer's Point

Maybe it's something to do with the changes to this year's ASP rankings, but 31 of the Top 45 will be showing up in Western Australia next week for the Drug Aware Pro at Surfer's Point Margaret River. Dream Tour vets Mick, Parko, Taj & the Hobgoods will be there along with the new crew led by Owen Wright & the Gudauskas brothers. Forecast appears to be promising, so looking forward to some cracking action.

In the meantime, here's our bit on the best of the West:

"Take Wallcliffe Rd to Prevelly Park. Head for the car park at the river mouth.

Most (in)famous big wave break on the WA coast. Surfers's Point is a L & R peeling either side of a shallow ledge reef. Holds up to 25ft. Tricky paddle out & shifting peak in bigger swells. The left can be a vertical drop takeoff, followed by a long sucky bowl section, then a great long whackable wall.

The Rivermouth just North is an occasional beach style option. From the car park you can see Southside (Suicides!) just South.

Goes without saying that you need to be expert to survive here on big days. Quite apart from the wave itself, there's also hold-downs, being caught inside, broken boards & strong currents to think about."

Click here for more info on surf spots around Australia.

Surfest in Newcastle

This marks the 25th year of Surfest, run on the New South Wales central coast. About a 2 hour drive north of Sydney brings you to Newcastle, which lays claim to being the world's largest coal export port and home of 4 time World Champion Mark Richards. Surfest was started back in 1985 to try and shake the grimy industrial image of the city and since then has become Australia's largest surf festival. Past winners include legendary names that include Tom Curren, Occy, Kelly Slater and current World Champ Mick Fanning.

This year's lineup includes current WCT surfers Drew Courtney and Ben Dunn, along with tour veterans Occy, Sunny Garcia and Nathan Hedge. Here's our take on this world class spot:

"Merewether is the southern end of the Bar/Dixon/Park Beach trio. The Ladies' reef works just off the rocks - heavy R breaking on patchy reef and sand. Holds up to 15ft swells (best in 6-8ft) and can get very powerful. Serious local crew with many surfing legends here. If there's solid SE swell head S to Leggy Point and S end of Glenrock Beach to get away from the crowds. On the way there you may see Shallows."

Click here for info on more Aussie surf spots.

Off to the Gold Coast

Waiting period for the Quiksilver Pro - Gold Coast begins on Friday, so a perfect time for us to highlight the breaks that the Top 45 will be calling home for the next couple of weeks. From the forecasts D'bah may have more to offer than Snapper, but here's our breakdown of both waves for you anyway.

"Snapper Rocks: The start point of the longest right-hand barrel machine on earth. The Snapper section gets more swell than Kirra, often delivering a hard-breaking take-off, leading to a makeable section and race-track. Can link up across Rainbow and Greenmount for record breaking shack time. Current is mad so get a wave quick and walk back up the beach. Advanced. Crowds? Ah Yeah!"

"Duranbah: Consistent, peaky L & R beach breaks up and down the beach due to sand deposited out of Tweed River mouth. Quite powerful and punchy with some shore dump. Best in 3-6ft SE swells. Very crowded with a heavy local scene. All standards. Consistent. If it's huge, you may see the Tweed Bar from here, outside rights and lefts way off-shore."

Click here for more surf spots around Australia.

Competing Theories

The 2010 pro surf season is well under way, with a good half dozen WQS events completed. Both CJ Hobgood and Taj Burrow have already won and are looking in good shape for the start of the Dream Tour this Saturday with the Quiksilver Pro at Snapper on Oz's Gold Coast. We thought this would be a perfect time to break out some pearls of wisdom from old & current pro's on heat preparation & competition.

Luke Egan on preparation: "Eliminate everything from your mind except what you need to zero in on. Your board, food, heat time, leashes, wetsuit, girlfriend and personal issues should all be taken care of way early. When your heat comes you just need to focus on strategy and conditions."

Occy on staying in a groove: "Competition will make you superstitious. Every athlete in every sport does little things to give himself what he thinks is an edge. I'll start out with a routine, with a certain pair of boardshorts, a way of putting everything in place. And if I win, I just keep doing the same thing; I won't change my boardshorts or tee shirt colour, I'll stay with that same routine, the same board. And I'll change it all up if I'm off. People won't usually talk about it, but they all have something they use to get in the zone. If it works, use it. And keep winning."

Taj Burrow on winning: "Here's a key thing I've learned - you only need to win 6 heats to win the contest. One thing you don't want to do is look at the whole pack. I get to a contest and see the top 44 and it can psyche me out. I look at everyone's form and it's intimidating. They are all so good, it's easy to get down on yourself if you aren't surfing in perfect form. The secret: just surf your heat. I've had victories when I wasn't the best guy in the contest. I just concentrated on beating six guys, not 44. That's all it takes."

Kindly taken from Jim Kempton's "Surfing The Manual: Advanced"