What's in a Name?

At the Point in Jeffrey's Bay this weekend, there is a gathering of big name brands.

Sean Holmes talks to Warren Dean. Nicky Godfrey and Shaun Payne chow a hamburger and suss out the surf, which is tiny but clean. Frankie Oberholzer and Alan Johns chinwag about life. Shane Thorne, Roosta and Greg Emslie can be seen in the thick of it. Davey Weare, Wayne Monk and Devyn Matthys represent for Slum Town. Beyrick, Slade, M-Feb and Dylan Lightfoot check out the scene as only they can. The Armstrong family are in force. Pierre Tostee, Mike Frew and Alan Johns, Ryan Payne, the Fletchers and the Marees from Cape Town. The locals like Craig Els, Daniel Thornton and Ari Kraak. The St Francis Bay crew of Simon Fish, Dale Staples and Shaun Payne, and other top rippers from all over the country.

Everyone who is anyone and then some.

The waves at The Point on Saturday were small, but rippable. The junior surfers were sent out for their first round heats. It’s amazing to watch talented flyweights turn a trick by taking tiny to super-charged.

They cranked solid turns like heavyweights do at Supers, but all to scale. Micro scale. Ankle snap style. Ethan Fletcher crammed five, six, seven turns on one little inside runner, causing an excited spectator from the beer tent to start clapping. It was quite early in the morning, Maybe there was another reason for his enthusiastic clapping. Either way, it was impeccable timing.

Lightweights like Dylan Lightfoot, Steven Sawyer and Mikey February also tore the waves to pieces. Dylan, fresh from a Rip Curl Intl GromSearch win at Bells Beach in Australia and a fine performance at The ISA Worlds in Panama is vying hard for the win, be it the U20 division or the Industry Cup division. Dylan is surfing for Team BloodScan in the industry division.

“Plenty of waves coming through,” said event announcer Mickey Lindsay as another set poured through the point in the late afternoon. “It’s steel pulsing.”

The first day of a three-day event is always a case of getting through the heats. It was a fun day’s grind. On Sunday, the Industry Cup takes to the water in earnest. Raymond Robertson (team Billabong) will be determined to show the lighties how to wet a rail. Teammate Sean Holmes will be as keen to reclaim his title as King Of J-Bay, whether it is Supers, Impossibles or Point. Paul Canning from O’Neill had to pull out of the event at the last minute, so we won't be seeing his hard-earned contest experience in the water, but surfers like Antonio Bortoletto, Davey Weare and Dan Redman will be frothing to smash some inexperienced whipper-snappers in their bid for personal and team glory.

Dane Patterson is keen to wrest the trophy from Billabong and take it home to the Quiksilver mantelpiece in Durban, but it’s going to be a long and hard contest with many an interference or paddle-battle on the way.

But if truth were told, it’s a tough world out there, and the surf industry has been taking the knocks just as hard as other industries stumbling through the global financial crisis. Everyone needs that 15 grand first prize.

That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?