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No matter how good you are, if you get the opportunity to windsurf Garry William (famous Brandon Bay surf break), you’re going to experience awesome wave riding along with gnarly wipeouts. A deep water break onto super sharp lava rock, this place is very intimidating even when you know the jet bike rescue is only feet away. For the first time in competition history, the Pro's at the recent UKWA Wave event got to compete at this infamous break. Here are two wipeout stories from newcomer Steve Jarvis and event winner Andy King.
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Steve Jarvis, 19 yrs old, from Avon beach, currently a student at Southampton Uni.
I’d walked out the day before to look at the place and my first thought was, ‘boy those are sharp rocks!’ When it was announced the next day that we would be competing out there, I was happy that it was starboard tack but very anxious about breaking a lot of kit.
When I arrived there was plenty of wind far out, but when you got to where the wave was breaking it was real light. Half way through my first heat I realised I needed to get deeper into the wave to score more points rather than stay on the shoulder. So the next wave, I went to drop down it and someone dropped in on me. I bailed out the back, got overpowered as the wave broke and my sail ripped out of my hands. I still held onto my board, saw the next wave, got into a waterstart position and tried to forward loop my sail over the lip. That went over, but the board caught in the lip and I was punished! The next wave I grabbed my mast and dragged it to the bottom and just dived through the face of the wave. The lip broke over my head. It was not too much of a hold down. I was more worried about those rocks so I curled up into a ball. Wave No.3 I dived under, wave No.4 I ended up standing on the rocks with a five foot wall of white water coming towards me! The Rescue Jetbike missed my kit and I thought it was a gonna but it got caught in the current and swept to one side. Everyone shouted at me, ‘swim, swim to get into the rip’ and I duly did and got the hell out of there!
My kit suffered a few tears on the luff tube and I was a little shaken up but angrier with the guy that dropped in on me – you know who you are. Yet after a few hours I had got over the initial rage, forgive and forget I suppose.
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The hood won't help - Steve Jarvis.
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Andy King, 30 yrs, from Lostwithiel, Cornwall, currently a property developer/builder!
When Duncan announced we were going to Garry Williams I felt a mix of excitement and trepidation. I’d only surfed it before and I think this made me more wary than other sailors who didn’t know what to expect. I knew it was very easy to go onto the reef as the wave breaks so close in – there is just no room for error.
When I launched it was really light, but once I got within 50m of the break, I could see someone catching a wave and that’s when I realised that it was on!! The logistics of running an event there meant you had to be on the water waiting for your heat, watching all these waves so I was super keen once allowed to get out there.
This wipeout was in my first heat, second wave. I smacked the lip and got a nice, floaty aerial. But as I was coming down I was blinded by some spray and landed with too much weight on my heels and too far forward. The rail dug in and I went into a flaka/goita as the lip caught me and flipped me over. But I managed to hold on and re-surfaced as the wave passed over and waterstarted off to the shoulder section. I remember being really angry about not landing the ‘first air’ of the day rather than worried about getting wiped out but I was lucky not to end up on the rocks.
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The look of pain - Andy King.
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