---

advertisement

beachwise

    Is This the Year for Mick? This year’s Fosters ASP Men’s World Tour has been an exciting one. According to Wikipedia, “The ASP is the foremost governing body in professional surfing,” and this is one of their most prestigious contests. We are four events into the tour and have already seen four different winners. So far in the early going, Mick Fanning has been the dominant surfer, holding on to the ratings lead from the very first event. So, my question to you is, “Is this going to be the year that Mick Fanning wins the title?”

    With four out of 10 events having already taken place, and the best eight out of 10 showings being counted, Mick is on top and looking to stay there. He started the year off with a win at the Quiksilver Pro, and has not placed lower than third in any event since then. Currently he is 610 points ahead of second place, held by Damien Hobgood.

    What has sparked Mick? For sure, it is due to his competitive nature, which, in turn, is fueled by his desire to move out of the shadows of Kelly Slater and Andy Irons. Tired of finishing in third place behind the two most dominant surfers so far in the new millennium, Mick is ready to take his place atop the standings at the end of the year.

    But don’t give the crown to Mick just yet, because being on top of the leader board early in a season is not new to him. In fact, Mick had the overall lead early on in 2005, but was eventually overtaken by Slater and Irons, and had to settle for third. This could have been due to some strain he was still feeling after coming back from a torn hamstring injury that should have ended his career. In 2006, Mick ended up doing the exact opposite of what he had done the year before. He came into the year having a very slow start, maybe due to lingering fatigue from the hamstring injury, but really came on at the end of the year. Nonetheless, it was too little to late, and he once again finished third behind Slater and Andy.

    With the hamstring injury behind him and a renewed confidence in himself, Mick should have no problem in continuing his dominance over the other surfers on the tour, and will walk away the crown at the end of the season. I wouldn’t mind seeing Mick win his first world title this year. But then again, it wouldn’t be so bad to see another Florida boy like Damien win the world title this year either.

Forecasted Conditions

    We finally got a nice little storm front, which pushed some good surf our way. Sorry about last week’s report, but I couldn’t have seen that storm coming 10 days out. Hopefully you were able to get out at least one of the days the surf was here. Saturday and Sunday show no real signs of sizable surf. If we are lucky we might see some small longboardable dribblers that we are so used to in the summertime here. The work week shows no real promise of being any better than the weekend, and will most likely have little to no surf. Right now the best we can do is cross our fingers and pray for some surf to come our way. Since it is hurricane season we should also look at potential storms. As of report time, there is no marked activity in the Atlantic that is predicted to be the start of a serious storm. However, there does look like there is something down by South America, which could end up causing some sort of storm beginning. But don’t take my weekly word for it, call or log onto your local report daily to find out what the present conditions are for your favorite break.