The day began with the music truck blasting some crazy Drum & Bass Trap music while the horizon threatened a storm. Not the way anybody wants to start a Saturday. No Sir. Dark grey fluffy clouds wanting to open the floodgates of heaven, and intense dance music fit for club CRUSH assaulting the ears shoreside. Not the dreamy 7.30am start we’d all hoped for. But soon the playlist was rectified, intense 1000bmp Trap exchanged for the sultry sounds of the Allah-Las, the doom and gloom clouds which foreshadowed havoc slowly dissipated, setting the sun’s rays free. And we enjoyed a superb day of surfing at the Zigzag Durban Surf Pro presented by G-Force.

Here’s who’s surfing was lit!

Groovy Steezy

If there’s one thing Stevens good at, great at even, it’s hanging in the pocket. The homie always hangs in the pocket. Chills in the groove. If you ever listened to Steezy Sawyer plays music, he pretty much follows the same idea. He sits in the groove, in the pocket of the music if you will. And just plays guitar from there. Never moving ahead. It’s probably cause Steven grew up surfing one huge point break and listening to John Mayor. When the bowl opens up Steve just hangs right in the middle of that thing and goes up and down, and upside down. Smooth as butter. 007 shiat. James Bond in a tuxedo charming a French babe. Steve got a pair of sixes to make his heat. Let see if his pocket surfing can see him through round 3.

Dylan Lightfoot – The Black Metal Drummer

Apparently, Matty Mc G and Dylan Lightfoot have been on a wild child training regime. Like a couple boxers training for a fight, they’ve been going blow for blow running mock heats and just going generally berserk on the points of Jbay. And it showed in Dyls performance today. He looked fast and powerful. I mean he normally looks fast and powerful, but today he looked even faster and more powerful than usual, with a sprinkling of surf arrogance. Certainly one of the quickest most powerful surfers at the event. 

Strangely, Dyl looks more comfortable surfing beach breaks than at the points. Maybe it’s all the years spent on the Q. Or maybe it’s cause he always surfs ahead of himself. If Stevie’s a blues guitarist hanging back in the groove, then Dylan’s a  black metal drummer pushing the groove forward. We’ve yet to see Dylan make the final at one of these City Surf Series events, perhaps his time has come?

Joshe Faulkner Can’t Sit Still

Joshe’s probably one of the most talented surfers doing the City Surf Series, but he struggles to make heats. His surfing style is like the garage of a perfectionist, but his brain is like scrambled eggs on a pan before the invention of non-stick. Joshe will land a 1000 air revos before his heat, but as soon as the siren sounds and the lollipop swings green, the brother can’t even identify an air reverse section. Luckily today was not that day for Joshe. Beach breaks allow Joshe to surf himself into a rhythm. Finding waves here and there and building on scores. Today Joshe did one of the sickest, most stylish backhand rotations. It was lit. We hope the nerves don’t get him and there are lots of waves for the handsome man from Jbay in his round 4 heat. 

Kai Woolf ’s Backhand Prevails (Once Again)

Even though Kai fell out of the draw early in the Open Women’s QS event, she pretty much went on to win the heat of the event thus far. The junior women’s final consisted of Kai (obviously), Zoe Steyn, who’s been a standout at competitor at this event and pretty much every event she surfs, Hawaiian Zoe McDougall who’s absolutely world-class, and Kommetjie local Ceara Knight (not the actor). If you haven’t yet witnessed Kai surf, she happens to own one of the best backhands’s in the country. Where many of the girls struggle going off the bottom-off-the-top, it’s the type of surfing Kai could literally do in her sleep. Kai surfed her way to another contest win in the juniors, she’s currently leading the City Surf Series Junior Tour rankings, she’s lying second on the Africa QS rankings, and in striking distance of taking the striped jersey off Nicole Pallet. We’re frothing to see how the story unfolds.

Zoe McDougall Defends Her Title

As was made evident by yesterday’s write-up, Zoe McDougall was on a tear. She came to South Africa with something to prove, and she proved that today in Durban. The Open Women’s final was tricky. The onshore picked up, there was a cheeky little backwash coming at you and the waves were breaking all over the place. But the more difficult the conditions seemed to get, the better Zoe seemed to surf. I don’t know if she surfs onshore backwashy waves all day in Hawaii or if Matty Mc G’s been training with her at the Kitchen’s beach break in the onshore, cause it certainly seems so. During the Open Women’s final, Zoe held nothing back, finding waves with perfect little bowls (which was hard to do) and smashing the lip as hard as she could. Hell, she beat those lips harder than most of the junior men could. Zoe also built on her scores nicely, starting with twos, then threes, then fives and ending with a pair of sixes. A deserved winner was Zoe today.  

Do delight yourself in a wonderful gallery shot by our trendy Cape Town photographer, Ian Thurtell. 

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