The Caribbean Surf Network Contest Apr. 16, 2007

Day 1
Anticipation ran high during the CSN contest which was held in Barbados over the Easter weekend. This event was a success in the eyes of everyone attending.

On Saturday morning the waves were about 2-3 feet, with the odd bigger set coming in. In addition to the many local surfers that took part in the contest there was a crew of talented Trinidadians attending. As you can probably guess it was game on.

In the first few heats there were some big upsets like Mark (the boss) Holder getting taken out by Mathew Kieffer who was on fire in his heat. Peter Hill, Barbados Champion surfer, was surfing with a pulled hamstring and later had to pull out of the event. There was something different about the competition as the younger kids were an unexpected threat. Nevertheless, the well known free surfers were making their presence felt. You could not take anyone for granted so the dominating crew had to fight to stay in the competition and many of them were sent home early. The level of surfing was high.

Day 2
Sunday morning the swell picked up and the waves were all over the place. This meant in the early rounds local knowledge was key. Once again the level of surfing was high with the young stars Lewis St. John, Jonathan Reece and Stephan Corbin going big. It was also good to see the Trini boys Alan Davis, Keith Lewis, Sean Morof and others ripping the left at Brandons making it even harder to get through to the next round. As the low tide came in the waves were about head high. The final results were based mainly on wave selection and the bigger the wave the more potential you had of achieving a high score.

As the day came to an end, the final included Brian Gooding, Jonathan Reece, Barry Banfield (all Bajans) and Alan Davis (a Trini). It was unfortunate as before the start of this stacked final there was about 15 minutes in which about three of the best sets of the day rolled in. It was like torture seeing those waves pass un ridden.

Once the horn blew and the final was on Alan caught the first wave of the last set to be seen and ripped in to it with big front side hacks. This definitely helped his cause. A few sets came in but they were medium size waves and Johnathan and Brian ripped them. However, the real battle was between Barry and Alan, both holding nothing back.

End result

Alan Davis 1st
Barry Banfield 2nd
Brian Gooding 3rd
Jonathan Reece 4th

Good times where had by all and I would like to say thanks to Suzuki for sponsoring the event . Thanks to Chris Clark, Nick Donawa and all the judges for giving of their time and energy to the surfers. We really do appreciate it.

By: Barry Banfield