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DOUBLE BLUFF: INSANE CORNWALL SESSION

After weeks of relentless swell and wind, it would have been easy to sit this forecast out… but something didn’t feel right about letting it go. The charts were lining up, the period was there and the Bluff was in the firing line. For John Carter and Ross Williams, it meant committing to a long-haul mission from the island with no guarantees…just the chance that it could all come together or was the forecast a fake and playing a perfect double Bluff. Some days you play it safe… and some days you go all in and see what shows up. With the Bluff holding all the cards and serious swell on the table, it was time to stop overthinking it, back the call… and find out if the Atlantic was bluffing or not.

Photos: John Carter, Josef FitzGerald-Patrick and Steve Clarke…Click any shot to enlarge and scroll…Best viewed on a big screen!

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JOHN CARTER

“The UK had been on a ridiculous run of wind and pumping swell, so naturally I thought… yeah, maybe I’ll just stay home this weekend. But then my gut feeling was telling me that this could be the last big session of the season.

The forecast was calling for a 5m swell at 16 seconds with west winds swinging southwest by midday. In other words, it could be Bluff gold. One of my favourite places to shoot when it decides to behave… which isn’t often. As always, you never know if the forecast is going to do what it says on the tin…Coming from the Isle of Wight this was quite a risky trip and we just had to put our faith in what was promised.

TWENTY SEASONS!

Timo had been banging on about this ‘Twenty seasons’ theory…basically reminding us we’re not getting any younger and we’d better stop pretending we’ve got endless chances left. That was all the convincing I needed. Staying home suddenly felt like a terrible idea.

After scoring an epic south coast session earlier in the week, I rang Ross…fully expecting him to say no to another mission off the island. Instead, he didn’t even hesitate. That should’ve been the first warning sign.

The plan was simple on paper and ridiculous in reality: 7:30am ferry, four-hour drive to Cornwall, sail/shoot all afternoon, then turn around and leg it back for the 10pm ferry. Easy. What could possibly go wrong?

By the time we rolled into the Bluff, it was already firing. Proper wind, proper waves and a car park full of people either nervously rigging up or quietly questioning if they had the balls to go for it. I prefer to be there early when things build…but this time we’d arrived straight into the chaos.

Within half an hour it went from ‘pretty wild’ to ‘Off the scale!’ The wind cranked, the swell jacked and suddenly I could barely keep the camera steady as 30-knot gusts tore down the cliffs. Meanwhile, mast-high sets were detonating way out the back like the ocean had something to prove…it looked like carnage out there.

Most people were already packing it in just as I was getting started…perfect timing as always. Luckily, Timo, Ross, and Blacky were on the same program and hit the water right as it turned properly mental.

Timo may have missed out on the south coast session on Tuesday and it looked like he wanted to leave no regrets behind and hit pretty much every lip that presented itself. It wasn’t exactly user-friendly out there. Big, hollow sections, tide dropping and the kind of closeouts that were do-or-die.

Timo, unsurprisingly, decided this was the moment to hit everything in sight. One absolute bomb stood up, threw a heavy barrelling lip and he went straight at it like a man with nothing to lose. A bloke walking past just looked at me and said, ‘I hope you got that.’

I broke out in sweat while nervously check the camera to check focus…No pressure!

Ross and Blacky found their rhythm in between the carnage, throwing in some solid turns and a few well-timed airs when the ocean briefly allowed it. But after an hour, everyone looked equally fatigued…and slightly relieved to be back on the beach in one piece.

DOUBLE BLUFF

Round two was a different story. Fewer people, more wind and somehow even less control. Ross was hanging on to a 4.0m for dear life, while Blacky was still bravely (or foolishly) clinging to a 5.m.

By 5pm, we were all completely cooked, ironically the wind was just dropping and it was cleaning up but we were all toast. Bodies were wrecked, brains were fried and we had a four-hour drive still ahead of us. Somehow, we made the ferry, and in a rare moment of lucky planning, rewarded ourselves with a couple of well-earned beers on the crossing back to the island. It was a long day with some questionable decisions. But absolutely worth it.

And if Timo’s right about those twenty seasons… I’d say we have used this one pretty well. No regrets!”

TIMO MULLEN

THE ULTIMATE BLUFF SESSION

“So, I’ve been kind of playing catch up since getting back from Ireland and missing an epic day on the south coast. Yeah, that didn’t hurt at all.

So, if people didn’t know, I have an Airbnb house in Gwithian Towan’s that I used to live in when I worked in Cornwall. And now I rent it out almost as a full-time Airbnb. So, if you’re a keen windsurfer and want a cool place to stay, check it out.

But one of the downsides of having an Airbnb is you have to clean it every week. And I do all the cleans for my Airbnb. And in the winter-time, it normally coincides with either good surf or good windsurfing. This whole winter, it’s coincided with epic windsurfing.

So, I saw this forecast coming for the weekend and actually the Friday looked amazing as well. Friday evening Gwithian had a pretty solid, long period swell and south-southeast winds, which is very offshore. So, I got down that evening, late afternoon I guess, and I pulled into the carpark, and it was just pumping…solid, solid, solid Gwithian, like as solid as you can get… and super cross-off, so just huge barrels.

Actually, …as I was going into the water…I saw one of the best surfers at Gwithian get one of the craziest barrels I’ve ever seen. So, I went out on my big board and caught about 7 waves, but some of the heaviest, gnarliest lips I’ve seen. I hit pretty much every lip I went for.

Got destroyed on a few, made a few, but I knew that I didn’t want to stay out too long because the next day was going to be super windy and even bigger, but it was a good practice session.

So, I stayed in my van like I normally do because the house is taken by guests. And then got up super early the next morning. The swell wasn’t there yet. I let JC and Ross know…they’d just got off the ferry, making their way down and the swell was only like 2 to 4 ft when I got up in the morning.

So, I went down to Hayle river mouth, scored a sauna. There is an amazing sauna down there. I had the sauna at 8am in the morning, got all the laundry done and then it takes me three hours to do the Airbnb clean. So, by 1 o’clock, I was ready to go and that was kind of like the best tide for the Bluff.

So met up with the boys. Ross had just gone out on a 4.4m…it looked insane. Super sunny, but not that huge. By the time I had got my gear and walked down to the beach, it had gone from being 4 ft to 8 ft…it was absolutely crazy. Some of the best Bluff waves I’ve seen, maybe since the Storm Chase. I rigged 4.5m on my 94L quad.

I was psyched up!

A DANGEROUS GAME OF BLUFF!

I’ve been loving boosting big airs lately. Well, I always have loved big airs, but lately it’s like the lip is a magnet to me. This day was setting up perfect for just big one-hit airs because the long period swell was making it close out.

It was a 4-5m swell, so it was pretty heavy and I got some pretty sick ones. I did not feel it was really lining up too well for turns and stuff, so the only thing you could do really was hit it.

To be fair, there were a lot of people out for it being so big. I don’t know if everybody made it out the back, but it was windy.

I was overpowered straight away on my 4.5m. I could have been on a 4.0m the whole session which is pretty scary when you’re charging down the line heading towards mast-high lips. I survived about an hour and a half session, nailed some good hits, then came in, grabbed some lunch and then grabbed my 4.2m, where I should have really grabbed my 4.0m because it got even windier.

The second session, I didn’t really do much. I was just so overpowered. Ross scored a sweet spot for about 20 minutes. Ross got some of his better waves in that time. Blacky was ripping as usual, but he was on a 5m…what the hell!

I use a 5m when there’s no wind. He was using it and it was 40 knots, so…but I guess he can lock it down. We finished up by 5:30pm.

I had to get home to pick my daughter up and yeah, all in all, it was an absolute epic session at the Bluff. Maybe one of the best sessions we’ve ever had there.!”

Extreme-wise, it was as extreme as it gets. But yeah…what a day. Thank you, Bluff.”

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ROSS WILLIAMS

“I was pretty confident we were going to score some conditions, but already as we rocked up, it was already on…like, it was already beyond on. We thought we had the timing right, but we could have probably been there a little bit earlier and maybe caught the wind before it got super out of control.

There were huge waves and solid wind rolling in and in that time that we walked to the beach and then back to the car, got the gear rigged up and made it to the water, it had gone next level again as well. The waves were even bigger.

The wind was even stronger…I was totally overpowered already on my choice of sail, which was a 4.4m. I am blaming Carter for persuading me to go bigger!

I kind of thought it’s rare that I use a smaller sail than 4.4m for wave riding, but after about an hour’s worth of sailing, I could tell I could not hold on much longer to it. I also couldn’t catch the waves I wanted because I was just getting blown out the sides and over the top of them.

So, I had to do a strategic change of sails, which takes a little while there because you’ve got a long beach. You’ve got to walk up, rig in the sand, then go up to the car park, which takes, you know, 10–15 minutes to get up there and back down again and then rig again. It’s all a bit of a kerfuffle.

But I rigged up the 4.0m, it was definitely a lot better…much more controlled.

It kind of got a little bit better towards the end of the next session. I guess people already had their fill of sailing because they’d probably done 2 or 3 hours and were packing up and leaving, and the crowds were thinning out. I think there was only me, Timo, Blacky and maybe a couple of others in the end.

The wind started to ease off, and the waves began to reel down the line a bit more rather than just closing out.

The waves were sick…it’s such a beautiful spot to sail. When it’s good, when you have the right size sail and equipment, and you’re bottom turning with a nice line on a wave, it’s really an amazing place for wave sailing.

So yeah, it was a full mission…4 hours of driving, 3 hours of sailing, and then another 4 hours back to the island. I was toast by the end of the day.

But I kind of feel like it was worth it. It’s just nice to be out in the water. The water is a little bit warmer down there…it’s the first time not using boots instead of having to wear gloves, boots and wrap up fully. It’s nice having bare feet in the straps.

And yeah, it’s amazing to sail with Timo, Blacky and all the locals down there. It’s a solid crew of lads who are all frothing on windsurfing. It is also cool to have an iconic shot with St Ives in the background and boosting an air…it makes the whole trip worthwhile.

So yeah, two trips off the island in a week…that’s pretty unheard of for me in the last five years. It feels like breaking the rules, but now I’m like, that’s it…I’ve got to do it. I can’t just stay on the island anymore. I’ve got to branch out and sail some of the spots I really want to around the UK.

I’m a little bit disappointed in my standard of sailing…it’s definitely not the level I used to be at, but that’s what I mean. I’ve just got to keep plugging away at it, and hopefully I can still get some nice shots, have some good rides and enjoy my sailing, which I absolutely did.”

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IAN BLACK

CALL MY BLUFF

I get a message from JC the night before, ‘Coming bk morrow with Ross’, ‘Day Trip’. I’m immediately thinking to myself ‘Great, another bell cluttering up the line up’!  

Only joking, if there’s one guy you want to be sailing with, its Rosco. He is irritatingly good and his placement on the wave is literally second to none. Take heed, young guns, if you want to feature, watch this guy!

To start, the wind was pretty onshore and for a bit I did wonder if it was going to be any good at all. The tides were perfect though and we only needed a bit of luck and it was on.  I watched for a bit, it already looked pretty decent. Then just like that the wind came round another few degrees, nuked and it was firing, logo to mast peeling bombs and spray pluming perfection.  

I had a little bit of a panic on and a slight equipment drama. It’s a long story, I can’t really blame anyone else, but the only sail I had to use was a 5.0m, not my best move.  However, anyone who is a Blade fan will know they have always been amazing when overpowered and this year’s sails are next level again. Somehow, I was still able to hang-on and it all worked out well, cos it gave me the perfect excuse!

Timo was on a mission and was literally clocking everything in sight…………………. ‘Yeah, I would have hit some too but I was way too overpowered!’ Reality was I was going nowhere near it. ‘Tide going out Bluff ‘is always proper hectic when it’s sizey and I’ve counted many of a crab over the years. The poundings you get are insane. Because of the river you kind of get pinned on the bank and instead of just having to take 2 or 3 on the head, you end up with a proper shoeing as wave after wave unloads slap bang on top of you over and over. I think if you asked any of the locals, big ‘Tide going out Bluff’ would probably be one of the most feared spots.

Like most river mouth set ups when its on, its on and today it was ON! I was kicking myself a bit though for the 5.0m fiasco. Many a screamer reeled off without me, as another gust from hell lifted me up and slammed me into a heap.  

As always though on the flip side, I also had some crazy waves, flying down the line 100% on the edge. I can still see those walls a few days later, and right there, that’s why we all keep going back for more!

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JAN SLEIGH

“Yesterday was fun but savage! I arrived early afternoon and it looked pretty friendly in the sunshine….Ben Harbour and Mike Cunliffe had just finished the morning shift and described an epic session. With the NW swell hitting Hayle river-mouth head on and predicted to build to 5m at 16 seconds I knew things were going to get lively!

The wind was strong too! I started on 4.7m but had to rig down to 4.5m after a few runs as I was stacked. The de-rigging, trip back to car park and re-rigging wasted a bit of sailing time…and when I got back on the water the waves had jumped in size. It was pretty tough getting out, although the wind was strong it was offshore and there was a football field of distance to cover to get out back.

There were big holes in the wind – usually right in the impact zone. I had so many swims. But I also scored some pretty solid waves. On one run out I saw Timo pull a huge aerial right in front of me. Next level. It was great to See Ross Williams too. While Andrew Fawcett and I were catching our breath on the beach, we saw him bottom turn under a huge section and do an insane cutback full surf style super impressive buckets of water spray. Overall, I had a lot of fun, but I had a couple of big crashes too and I am paying the price now!”

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IAN ROSS

“When the wave breaks here, don’t be there…or ya gonna get drilled!” This quote from Turtle in the 80’s surf film North Shore (look it up, it’s a classic!) has always stuck with me, because it’s funny and true and sometimes not funny! Well Friday and Saturday I managed to get myself “there” in just about every way possible, and I got drilled!

Friday’s forecast looked epic for Gwithian and I thought we were going to have a special session with just a couple out. It was really hard! I couldn’t get in position, and when I did, I felt like I was getting sucked up the wave and just couldn’t figure it out. There were some big heavy waves which started small but ended up as quick breaking dumpers! On one wave I tried to bail a turn and get over the back of the lip only to get sucked over the falls, down the mineshaft and into oblivion…this is fun right?!

My head was out of the game after being “there” and I struggled for breath. I was done! Timo went out as I was walking back up and straight away smashed a massive aerial! Mind you his next few waves ended up with insane crashes on mast high waves…he’s mental!

I wasn’t expecting Saturday to be up to much, probably in part due to the beat down I had on Friday. I pulled up next to Mark Meardon and we both commented on how windy it was…I thought it was meant to be 20mph, but it was howling and we both figured it was 4m weather.

Andrew Fawcett and some others were already out and it looked fun. Shout out to young local, Joe Trinder, who was getting some sick waves. I was surprised how many people showed up and was even more surprised when JC pulled into the car park being chauffeured by Ross Williams.

Three weekends in a row, in Cornwall, for a windsurfing’s photographer must be a record! He was joined by Steve Clark who returned to photo duties after some illness. It was a good session, the best the Bluff has been in a long time. I had some moments including an aerial that was pretty high and out of control with a huge gust and lots of spray…I crashed, but I love a crash!

And at least I had the confidence to hit the lip. I can’t remember much else except for making a rookie mistake with a mistimed lip hit, followed by a direct hit from the wave behind (when the wave breaks here…!). I haven’t been hit that hard in years and regretted being “there”, getting drilled!

When I surfaced my mast extension and mast had snapped. I was way out the back and had a long swim in with my kit doing its best to drown me. I dragged my broken ego and broken gear up the beach just in time to see Ross doing the best turns I’ve seen, on a perfect pealing wave in glorious sunshine. I guess I’ve paid my dues now and maybe I can get a decent turn next time!”

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JOE TRINDER

“What a day that was on Saturday at the Bluff! Equipped with my 4.0 Simmer Blacktip and 85 Flywave, I headed down to the beach, all charged up and ready for it like a Duracell Bunny! Walking down getting more and more excited watching others enjoy the conditions! After cranking on the down-haul, I headed out. It was okay in between the sets if you timed it right, so that was great. However, my first run was the opposite, met with a big set and thinking I was bigger! I wasn’t.

After a brief swim all was okay and shortly made it out, the waves were absolutely pumping and enough for everyone. The highlight of the session would definitely be dropping onto this one wave I thought was only logo high, then to realise the power and size of it being over mast high, having already committed you just gotta send it! The atmosphere on the water was amazing watching everyone catch sick rides and wanting to make the most out of every wave!

In particular this session meant a huge deal to me as it’s the first proper wave session I’ve had since my dad passed away a few weeks ago, he was an incredible wave sailor and loved a good cross-off Bluff session!”

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ANDY KING

“I spent most of the session either swimming, brutally overpowered or wobbling around in the lulls with very little in between.

After just coming out of injury, The Bluff was not ideal for my ankle hitting anything too heavy. I just yet so figured I’d get out whilst I was still in one piece! Mazza was great fun sailing later but not any special conditions…just windy, easy stunt ramps and fun cross on waves!”

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