Surfing New Zealand chief executive explains competitive surfing

To the uninitiated competitive surfing can be confusing. What is the priority system for example? Who decides which surfer gets to ride a wave? How are rides scored? Is an aerial manoeuvre worth more than a re-entry - whatever that is - and who decides?

With Surfing New Zealand's national championships wrapping up in Taranaki on Saturday, RNZ's Taranaki Whanganui reporter sat down with Surfing New Zealand (SNZ) chief executive Ben Kennings to try to demystify competition surfing.

How does competition surfing work?

"Yeah. So I guess for the layman, we like to describe competition surfing as similar to a tennis tournament.

So for example, you start with 64 surfers, and every round the field gets cut in half.

So you've got 64, then 32, then 16 surfers, eight surfers in the semis, and then four surfers in the final."

How many surfers in a heat?

"So, each heat comprises four surfers. You surf for 20 minutes, and each surfer is allowed to catch 12 waves. Each wave is scored out of 10 and their best two waves count.

What is priority?

"Yeah, so priority was introduced to make a heat more about the surfing, rather than the tactics and paddling around each other. It stops the hassling and potential confrontation.

You basically just surf one after another after another.

So if you catch a wave, you go to fourth priority, and then the next three guys have to catch waves before it's your priority or turn to catch a wave.

Is it really that simple?

"There are exceptions so, for example, if a wave comes in and the other three surfers don't want it, the person in fourth priority can take that wave.

And equally, if you've got priority, or maybe, if I describe it as the right to take the next wave, and you make a concerted effort to catch a wave, so that's, you know, some strong paddling, or you're kicking your legs, but don't catch the wave then you'll lose priority.

And when they paddle out who decides who has number one priority from the get go?

"So at the start of the heat, there is no priority, and it's determined a little bit more like it was, you know, 10 or 15, years ago, where you have to position yourself to try and get that first wave and soon as someone stands up on a wave, they go to fourth priority.

What manoeuvres are the judges looking for?

"So there's a criteria that the judges work towards, and that involves what you do on the wave and what that wave was like.

So, you know, you're looking for big turns. So if you're doing big turns with speed, power and flow on the waves, generally you're going to throw out lots of spray. That's going to be impressive.

And then you're looking for innovation. So that's the aerial surfing that's releasing the fins, and then the combination of major manoeuvres."

So that's going from one huge turn straight back into another one seamlessly. That's what's going to catch the eye.

It's a subjective sport, but just on the very basics of it. If you have a fundamental understanding of surfing, it's that wow factor.

So you can sit there and go: 'Wow, that was amazing'. And that's what catches the judges' eyes, and that'll be good.

What are some of the manoeuvres, and what tends to score the better?

"So you've got your basics, so you're always going to do a bottom turn on a wave, so that's coming around, and then you're looking to up to the top of the wave, and you're going to do a re-entry. So that's first one, and there's multiple combination variations of that.

Then you've got a cut back. So that's coming out more onto the shoulder and doing a big arc right back around into the white wash. So it's a cut back.

You've got a floater where you may have an oncoming section, and you ride over the top of the wave and come round."

And then into the innovation side. It's the aerial manoeuvres. So that's where you go out of the top of the wave. Your whole board's out of the top of the wave, and again, multiple variations of that and degrees of difficulty.

So you can even get separation from the board when surfers are doing flips, inverted rodeos - some of it's a little bit beyond me - but the young guys and girls are doing some exceptional manoeuvres, and that's what's going to set you apart."

How does the scoring work?

"So, each wave is scored out of 10, and you've got, from a judge's perspective, you've got categories.

So, you've got bad zero to two, two to four is average, fair. Four to six is average. Six to eight is good, and eight to 10 is excellent.

So when they are assessing a wave they look at and go, Okay, what category? Yep, that was good. Or was it just good? Or do you think it was middle good, or nudging on excellent.

So that's how they categorise those waves. Then in that excellent category, it takes something special to get up into that nine, nine and a half or 10 range.

There's a panel of judges, right?

"Yeah, absolutely. So you have a panel of three judges punching their scores into a computer system, and then you have a head judge overseeing it.

If there's quite a wide separation between the three judges that's when the head judge comes in and says, hang on a sec. What did we see? Why did you give it that? Do you think we should come closer together? And they try and get it generally within one and a half points."

What kind of tactics can surfers apply out there?

"Yeah, well, the first one is your positioning at the start of the heat to get priority or to get the best wave. So that's an important one.

The smart surfers will sit there for two or three heats prior to theirs. They may time the waves coming through. They'll look at how many waves are in each set.

So usually, the waves come in a set of two or three or four, and they'll look at which one's better, you know, is the second wave of the set generally better?"

"You know, does the first wave clean it up a bit, how the wind is impacting it, what the tides are doing.

So they're all things to control prior to and then out in the water, yeah, maybe whether you're up against two goofy-footers (surfers who stand on a surfboard with their right foot forward and their left foot at the back) or three natural-footers, (left foot forward) your point of difference.

And then you can hear your scores. They get called out over the PA throughout the 20 minutes. So if you're behind, you know you've got to perform well. If you're in the lead, you may protect that, sit out the back, make sure that when the next good wave comes through, that you're on that wave, and that stops the others from getting it.

Can the board a surfer is riding make a difference?

"Equipment's another area that you can control as well. If the surf's small, they may go for a different construction of surfboards.

So an epoxy board, compared to PU, which is standard foam. So the epoxy has a little bit more buoyancy, so you just get up and riding a little bit better. It's generally ridden in small conditions. The downside is that it's just a bit lighter and a bit what they call skatey. So if it's windy or it's bigger, it can just be a little bit skittery and it doesn't sit in the water the same. So that's the trade off.

All of the surfers are on thrusters, so their boards have three fins, but yeah, they may change their fins, but you're starting to get quite technical there, and mostly they really just stick with the fins that they've got."

So what kind of size boards are they riding?

"Yeah, competition surfers are, I guess, in general, probably small compared to a lot of sportsmen. Not everyone, but a lot of them, they'll all be on boards ranging from probably five foot eight through to six foot.

I'd say the majority of guys probably under six foot, and I'll have anywhere from probably 27 litres to 32 litres of foam."

The Surfing New Zealand national championships open women's and men's finals are due to be surfed on Saturday.

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