Peter Devries getting a lift, Jeremy Koreski/O'Neill Europe
Day One: The O'Neill Cold Water Classic in Tofino
Tofino, B.C. was ready for its moment in the spotlight when it hosted the 2009 O'Neill Cold Water Competition. And so, as it turns out, was one local hero. [An excerpt]
Andrew Struthers Featured in our March/April 2010 issue.
Sunday October 25, 2009
Day One: Qualifying round (144 surfers)
A mile south of Tofino, the ragged outer coast of Vancouver Island, the sand at Cox Bay bristles with banners that rattle like battle flags in a Samurai flick. The late-October water is bitterly cold, dry-ice cold, Tiger Woods cold. The waves are massive, unforgiving. Ideal conditions for the O’Neill Cold Water Classic surf competition.
The Cold Water Classic is the first ever six-star surfing series—the highest rating given by the Association of Surfing Professionals—to come to Canada.
The series features five stops where the world’s top surfers battle it out along the planet’s most godforsaken coastlines. Each leg of the tour comes with its own superlative: South Africa is the wildest, Tasmania the farthest south, Scotland the farthest north. The organizers of the series did the math—Canada=freezing—and billed Tofino as “the coldest event in professional surfing.” And it’s true: While Scotland’s waters are warmed by the Gulf Stream to a balmy 6°C, Vancouver Island’s dip to 4°. The ocean is so cold here that if you spend too much time in the water, bone spurs can form like coral in your ear canals.
Nobody is more stoked about this competiton coming to Tofino than local surfer Noah Cohen. The 20-year-old Cohen, who is huddling behind a tent biting both thumbs and watching the waves, has been appointed O’Neill’s event ambassador. Which means he doesn’t have to surf the qualifying round today—in his capacity as ambassador, he scooped one of two coveted wildcard slots reserved for local surfers. But he still has plenty to do in his capacity as wingman for his friend and mentor Peter Devries, currently Canada’s top surf talent.
The 26-year-old Devries has a scraggly Jesus beard and a serpentine build, and three years ago was seeded 229th on the world surf circuit. Competitive by nature, but only against himself, he soon tired of the adrenalized lifestyle and returned to his first love, free-surfing. Which means Devries has sponsors who pay the bills—clothing label Hurley, Monster energy drink and Tofino surf emporium Storm—but instead of working the competition circuit, he spends his days shooting wicked HD footage of the island’s breaks and boneyards with Cohen and also photographer Jeremy Koreski and videographer Adam Chilton. His last competition was the local Surf Jam, with its $500 purse and Flying V guitar for swag.
But now the biggest contest in Canadian surf history, with $145,000 in total prize money, has come right to his door.
And unlike Surf Jam, where everyone expected him to win that Flying V, this time there’s no pressure. He’s up against the world’s best; all anyone expects is a good show. So he can toss the playbook and just free-surf.
The qualifying round is conducted in four-man heats, with two of the four riders advancing. Each heat lasts 20 minutes, which coincidentally is how long it takes a man without a wetsuit to die in these waters. Once the air horn sounds, anything goes—except catching a wave when there’s another surfer farther back, closer to where it’s breaking. A good wave is a terrible thing to waste, so whoever is in a position to get the longest ride owns the wave. This is called “priority.” There are no rules except priority and gravity. Scoring is out of 10, with each surfer’s top two rides combined into a total out of 20.
When surfing at the break, Devries has the exaggerated, deliberate stance of a pantomime cat. He slides laterally across the waves like a water bug, often catching the first and last breakers in a set, sometimes riding two consecutive waves. He owns the very first wave of his heat, turns hard into the face, punches up right through the lip, spins in mid-air and lands with a smack facing the beach again—a perfect alley-oop aerial. Score: 7.67. And that’s his low result. His high score—for an aerial reverse like a pole vault—is also the high score of the day, 9.5. He not only wins his heat, he shines.
This in a field of some of the biggest names in surfing, including: Joan Duru, the Frenchman who honed his skills on the rocky shores of Normandy, and who is seeded sixth on the World Qualifying Series; John John Florence, a pint-sized giant-wave rider from Hawaii who has been winning competitions since he was five; Australian Blake Thornton, who won the Cold Water Classic in South Africa; and fellow Australian Adam Melling, who won the Scottish Cold Water Classic, thereby also picking up a tiny patch of Highland moor, a claymore sword and the title “Lord.”
All of the surfers are clearly thrilled to be challenging waves in this far-flung location. But perhaps Tofino is a little too far-flung. Only 120 of the 144 invitees have shown up, leaving 24 slots unfilled in the qualifying round, which event director Matt Wilson sportingly throws open to the local surf crowd.
Seven locals try their hand, including Shannon Brown—who’s originally from Australia, and who has surfed a couple of four-star gigs but nothing of this calibre—and the Bruhwiler brothers—lean and reserved Raph and his younger sibling Sepp, who looks like he could be shot out of a cannon and survive, and possibly even enjoy it.
Raph Bruhwiler is a magic surfer who can rotate off the left in nearby Rosie Bay so violently that for a moment his head swings below his feet, but he has no luck with the waves today, and gets blown out of the water by South African Sean Holmes, currently ranked 32nd in the world.
Sepp Bruhwiler struggles in third place in his heat until the very last wave. It’s small and lumpy and breaks right on shore—an “inside job”—but he works it like a Baptist preacher, and at the final horn squeaks into second.
Shannon Brown moves into second place on his first wave, but falls into third and founders there until only moments remain in his heat. Then he turns right into the pocket (tough for a left-footed surfer) and pulls a floater over top of the lip as the horn sounds. He’s walking up the beach before he hears the final score—6.5—and realizes he’s just won the heat.
When the spume settles, Brown, Sepp Bruhwiler, Cohen and Devries are the only locals still in the competition.
For days 2 through 7, pick up the March/April 2010 issue of explore.
Originally published in explore magazine. Copyright © 2010 by explore. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any article, photograph, or artwork, for other than personal use, in whole or in part, without the written permission of the publisher is strictly forbidden.
