IWT PWA Fiji Pro World Cup 2023: D1, round 1

Posted by RIWmag on 02 Jun 2023 /

Bernd Roediger shares an in-depth account of how an epic first day unfolded in a really heavy Cloudbreak for the IWT PWA Fiji Pro World Cup 2023:

“From the beginning we knew the waves would be big, but coming from a mile on our boat-village and seeing white lines … well, This definitely put into perspective exactly how different it would have been. “Big Cloudbreak” from any other Cloudbreak face we've met before. There is a name for this in Fijian: “Kuru Kuru Mailani” means Thunder from the Heavens.

Phillip Köster (Severne / Severne Sails / Maui Ultra-bright Fins) had a foot injury, and therefore could not compete today, which moved the Heat 2 to the Heat 1, starting from 14:15. In that heat, I shared the lineup with Ricardo Campello (Naish / Naish Sails) and Russ Faurot, swapping wave sets. I started conservatively and from there I built, trying my brand new Flikka asymm that the guys had made especially for this trip. The waves were solid above the tree and I could feel the power under my feet, The browsing speed out there is incomparable to anything I've ever experienced and so it takes time to adapt to your conduction. I had a brand new asymmetric board from Flikka to use for this competition, And this heat was my first experience with the board under my feet! Since my success in Cabo Verde on Flikka boards never tried and brand new, I kept the formula of total trust in my shaper, Luka Jures!

Eventually, I came out of my heat with a win. Also with more confidence in the great Kuru Kuru. Although I felt that with each wave I was a little bit’ conservative and that I had arrived too early for that classic aerial of “Cloudbreak”. That kind of tall aerial that has become a trademark of the event.

Flo Jung (Starboard / GUNSAILS) Leon Jamaer (Flikka / GUNSAILS) represented very well for Gun Sails, advancing from the respective heats with a smooth ride and great timing with the best waves. I loved watching Leon sink his rail into the hollow section of these monstrous waves. It was there that he would find the power to project vertical approaches onto the lip., approaches we missed from any other rider last year, That boy's specific art and incredibly aggressive driving “at full throttle”.

Baptiste Cloarec (RRD / RRD Sails) He thrilled everyone and earned unanimous acclaim as the most hardened rider of the day. He aimed at aerials and drew critical cutbacks in places where other athletes, including me, had been completely satisfied that they had only come close. I am so impressed by the courage and technique of this guy, that lays the sail a few inches from the water at every committed bottom turn, and continues with a top turn inspired by surfing. At some point, on a huge water monster, He actually touched the wall of the wave with his tree and recovered! Not only did he make a miraculous parade, But it seemed that the touch of the tree actually turned its bottom into a narrower radius., giving him one of the biggest vertical successes of the day! We may have just witnessed an innovative new technique in down-the-line waveailing!

Baptiste beat Morgan Noireaux (JP / NeilPryde / Black Project Purposes) for the victory in the heat. However, Morgan's style is undeniable and his timing impeccable. He played the role of conservative over Baptiste's charismatic advantage and secured enough points to advance, while sailing in the heat completely unharmed. If it were a real surf trip, That style of sailing would be the ideal way to maximize your wavesailing while minimizing your losses. If there is someone I like more in navigation, that's Morgan.

Brawzinho (Goya Windsurfing) had a bit’ of shock and failed to put together his heat. At the beginning, has undergone a tremendous wipeout, A kind of chilling scorpion / Double backward deadly jump on the “waterfalls” of the wave after a wrong ariaal. After that and’ seemed to have been shaken though and’ managed to stay at the rhythm of the waves. Eventually the waves picked him up again and sent him to eat shish-kebab.. But we cannot discredit Braw's opponents., Federico Morisio (Starboard / Severne Sails) and Marc Paré (Fanatic / Duotone), who navigated intelligently and made their busy turns in the right sections! I love watching the progression of these two riders, as both are starting to break away from the group in terms of their unique style and approach. Marc was delightful to watch on Maui, pulling out some of the 360 more “Fat” of anyone else. And Fede has been in Chile for six months, and it shows in his waveriding on this wall.

Being in the first heat at Cloudbreak allows for a lot of uninterrupted downtime. In the canal we have a fleet of small "village-boats", open boats perfect for equipment rigging and stowage. Then we have the flagship Thundercloud, A trimaran sailboat able to accommodate a multitude of riders, Live crew and casual viewers like me. I've been lying on the Thundercloud all day watching these perfect Cloudbreak waves, The best waves a windsurfing competition has ever seen. Suddenly it occurred to me that I was perhaps one of the luckiest people on the planet to have all this, to have the resources, the time, support and equipment to sit in the Cloudbreak channel, Sailing an epic storm with all my friends. It seemed strange and funny that I was even here, And as I peered into the faces of friends on board, I wondered if they felt so dizzy from the same euphoria., so totally detached from the mundane, firmly planted in sacred space and with privileged company. They also wondered, incredulous in their private thoughts, “How I got here?”.

Last time I went to Fiji, My mother had to undergo routine knee surgery, but not without risk of complications. Obviously it wasn't something I should have missed the opportunity to go to Fiji for., only to stay on hold during a perfectly safe procedure, or so my parents had assured me. But I know my mom and I knew she was nervous about it.. I had just returned from a day at Cloudbreak, Friends had sat me down to tell me my mother had suffered a stroke.. In the following days I had discovered how serious he had been., how close my mother had come to the end of her life. While she was well and being treated in hospital, had suffered from neurological trauma associated with short-term memory. At that moment, during those days, I had struggled against the force of a new oppressive wave of darkness., A rising wave of fears coming true. What had been a privileged paradise in this circle of heavenly gifts that were Fiji, Suddenly it had become a torment that I teased as if the things I appreciated were thrown into the jaws of a total and desperate emotion.. I didn't want to be anywhere else but at home and counted the days until I could board my flight departing Fiji. How quickly life's best moments can turn into nightmares. And here I am again, in Fiji, I felt so good, with so many things that were fine. The impulse to move and’ arrived in a nervous adrenaline rush. Something in my head just said "do it now". Seeing those waves come off in total perfection, see the fragility of the moment, everything was so good. Who knows how long it lasts? Within minutes I was out of the break, having convinced Morgan to come with me, The two of us waiting for the last heat to end to be able to navigate freely. Even just one last wave. When the signal flag was lowered on board Thundercloud, The heat was over, just then a set and’ arrived along the prodigious coral reef that forms, at its tapered edge, Cloudbreak.

There we sailed to meet the set, veering in an easy confluence with its waves. I opted for a wave and Morgan took the back. While he formed and shaped himself into the most beautiful thing, more picturesque, most terrible, I could feel the energy tapping, waiting to fall and be released into something raw, a beauty that I could see from the inside. Entering, I pushed on the rail and heard the new board sing. Up in the lip, descending again and vanishing deep into the pocket of the wave, I kept an eye on a section forming along the line, a ramp. The bottom that rose in this slab of water thrown to me seemed to let go of my mind, resort to more natural instincts to take over, once in the air, I felt the freedom I had longed for, the expression of myself, Released. My lip kept falling into a long barrel below me.. Upon landing, I had very little space between my rig and the edge of the wave that kept plummeting.. I soon ran out of space and then was overwhelmed by foam..

I fell in the worst place, where the energy of the wave merges into a wave of vapor. I was floating in a few inches of water above the shish-kebab reef. Morgan came flying along the line on a beautiful wave in front of me, I couldn't help but admire the fluidity, the measured pace and wish I had sailed my wave the same way. One more time, if there is a sailor I want to resemble more, especially here at Cloudbreak, and’ just Morgan. His wave pushed me all the way, and the next five waves behind it did the same.. In a way,, it was a relief, Let me go into the stream of water, be tossed around like this. I tasted freedom from fear, for all day long I had feared that exactly this thing would happen, And now that it happened, it wasn't so bad.. But it would get worse.

Swimming above the reef, I couldn't find any sign of my equipment. It had to be very far away. I swam over the reef in the deepest lagoon, and I still couldn't see anything. Then I looked for the safety jet ski, thinking maybe they had already secured my rig. But what I discovered instead was that the jet ski was catching my eye and pointing to an old scaffolding cemented into the reef.. This old scaffolding is all that remains of the old judges' tower used for WSL competitions. Now it's four wooden poles, as big as trees, held to the cliff by a large concrete base. I looked better and there, between the beams, there was my board and my sail. They had already been crushed and chopped from wood and rusty metal., the concrete held them in place to be swept away again by the incoming waves.

As I struggled in vain against the raging waves and rising tide, The board I had ridden for the first time that day was now being destroyed at the point where it repeatedly wrapped around one of the four wooden beams.. My sail tore and twisted underwater and the situation continued to get worse.. I could not detach any part to relieve the strain to which my equipment was subjected, I could not free it because of the force of the water that bound it to the foundation. I felt like I was trying to save an injured animal., But nothing I could do could alleviate his suffering.. Then, The waves have calmed down, In this moment of calm I hurried to loosen it, in a short time it would have been free. But the next wave was coming fast and with it dragged my equipment, If I had resisted I would surely have arrived between the beams and my board, and the resulting impact of the wave would surely have broken my bones. I let go of the rig, maybe a quarter turn before it loosened completely. The wave came and smashed my board, while I dodged, clinging unnecessarily to the back strap, and watched my board break into two pieces against the scaffolding.. I fell silent with a nauseating pang of déjà vu. Something about the way that board broke with my hands on it. I was helpless. I couldn't protect her. I felt helpless between the twisted waves and broken fragments of my dear things. So I thought, "I shouldn't be here.. I shouldn't have come. And that thought brought to mind the memories that I've been trying to prevent from resurfacing ever since they were created.. Of the good things I appreciated being thrown into the jaws of a total and desperate emotion. The water blocking my sail seemed to have endless torrential force. It felt like a wave was going to rush inside me., overwhelming me, leaving me helpless for so long, sufficient time to make me doubt the rational assurances that Reason would lend: that the flood would retreat, that the end would come in the end.

In the end nothing was intact, I dragged each broken piece to the surface, Back on the boats, Back to Earth as the sun began to fade over the horizon. Out on the ocean, Fiji's blue water began to gray as night fell.
The moon was bright and almost full, He seemed to look at me in my boat as we sped through the night., My tattered white sail the focal point of her wild feminine prejudice. “You have not protected what is entrusted to you.” seemed to say. And so it came again, the thought of not belonging to this moment, of not being in the right place. The feeling I should have been somewhere else, A safer place, where things could remain as they were. Somewhere before an accident, Before a disaster, before the fears were realized. Something inside me contracted to push away what was coming., The wind was getting cold, The race in the increasingly harsh darkness, irregular. My sail, disgustingly twisted, He shivered in the dying breeze and the moon seemed to shift his gaze upon me., flooding my heart with light, forcing him to convulsions against firmly restrained feelings. I tried to control the flood that was coming, Then I begged to escape his full strength.. Tears for my mother came with endless torrential force. It seemed that the emotions of desperate pain would pour over me., overwhelming me, leaving me helpless for so long, sufficient time to make me doubt what rational assurances Reason would lend me: that the tears would dry, that in the end the end of this pain would come .

It felt like I had a wreck of tattered feelings to recover from the harrowing experiences I had here in Fiji. Sometimes the clearest place, bright and wonderful I've ever been to. In other, A dark mirror from which I want to turn around and escape. Many of my deepest fears in my life have come true., I get tired of fearing knowing that as my fears come true., somehow get worse, as new ones take their place. Formerly, My biggest fear was breaking a bone., after some ruptures culminating in a fractured vertebra, It seemed that the fear had vanished. My fears have matured with me, Anxieties for my family have accumulated and manifested. I'm just afraid to fear for the power it seems to give to that new demon.. Yet, If fear has taught me anything, it's that you can only fear "forward.". You can't go back to simpler times and minor worries, You can only face the growing challenges as you live and find comfort in the knowledge that every past experience with the “realization” of a fear survived. As painful as it is, you're still here, even after the worst has happened. I was afraid of big sections in Ho'okipa and my father and Mark Angulo told me “Exit, find the biggest lip and hit that Buttermuffin thing”. Then I, Buttermuffin |, I went out and charged in fear, pushing my boom. One day I broke my hand, just above the knuckle, and hurt me to death and kept me out of the water for weeks. It wasn't the end of the world. My mother is fine now, is alive, is happy, We walk our dogs together in the park. The painful memory of his stroke is precisely this: a memory, that my mother is lucky enough not to remember!

All that fear, That pain and that survival also teach something to the heart. Namely, it doesn't matter who you're with, you are in the company of fear and pain, The companions of the living. At any time we could talk to someone who is not sure if they can survive what is coming.. We all keep within us the memory of a time when it seemed that tears never stopped flowing. So with pain in our hearts we will say “I'll be there for you”. My tears dried when our boat touched down. I was grateful for the time spent in the darkness and moonlight to overcome this pain.. As unknown stars emerged in the sky, The rest of the faded twilight rolled westward to close another day away from home, But I felt that the air was alive with memories of my mother raising me and teaching me to swim.. “The waves go right below you.” he said as I kicked for life on the Hawaiian waves., “they pass you right under as long as you keep swimming”. Strange how we go to these places to express the best of ourselves, and there we meet the best of the people close to us, The people who took us through fear and hell on the wings of their love.

As I conclude this story, The night is spent with me in a restless solitude, In the morning he brings my friends and navigation companions; They listlessly enter the breakfast room after an exhausting day. The moon had remained high in solidarity with my running mind and my wounds., But the morning light projected on their faces reminds me of the joy we felt the day before.. Everyone is collectively experiencing that “high surfers”.

Sometimes the best moments of a day like this can escape you, can be taken for granted or compared to last year. Is a little’ How to eat a delicacy, but not for the first time. Go to Japan and lift the gently sliced edges of fresh hamachi sashimi and – if you've never seen anything like it – well, will leave you speechless; If you know sushi you'll probably think something like “Yes, it's really a good fish”. Experiences, no matter how beautiful, I'm like that. We can't help but compare, Nothing is like the first time. However, for an experience like surfing, there is always something more, A way a good session colors your life in pastel tones of clarity, of sweet tiredness, of a calm but vivid glow. Your body feels more valuable, tingling with a spiritual charge of such subtlety that it must be meditated upon and nourished. It's called "being surfed out", It's called being completely satiated., a "good tiredness".

The faces of the men and women of Fiji Pro have that streaked glow on their sun-kissed and pink faces.. Surfing out there at Cloudbreak is more of an indulgence with a favorite food or an enjoyable experience, It is a purifying visit to a sacred place. It's such a beautiful place so powerfully charged with the beating heart of the ocean that navigating it realigns your life with that primordial energy.. Enter, be blessed with his own experience, it means being in tune with the lifeblood of the planet, held in the womb of the world.”