Steve Thorp
I always have half an eye on the Fistral forecast. Sometimes it’s a good place to sail in a small SW swell, always having plenty of punch and in a big swell the legendary ‘Cribbar’ off Towan Head can fire-up. I’ve sailed the Cribbar reef a few times, sometimes even when it’s fairly small just so that I can leave the surfers on the beachbreak alone and have a peak to myself. The best wind direction is SSE, with a spring low tide and waves from mast-high upwards. The forecast for everywhere indicated an epic ‘Big Wednesday’ was on-the-cards. A chunky, long-period SW swell meaning everywhere from KBay to North Wales would get a look in. The wind was initially forecast to be straight S which would have been nearly perfect, but on the day turned out to have a bit of W in it, making it straight cross-shore on the Cribbar. It looked far from perfect with a lot of cross chop and the lip coming down in big irregular sections. The biggest set waves were breaking downwind as well before joining up and forming one big wall of white-water. That said it was the biggest I’d ever seen it, so was undoubtedly going to be worth a go!
It was too big a risk launching from Fistral Beach, so I walked down the old life boat launch ramp on the back of the headland and wobbled round to the Cribbar in the wind/wave shadow. Easy! Except the ramp provides probably the greatest opportunity of injury for the day with its slime-covered rusting iron beams and 8ft drop if you miss your footing!
Anyway, I played it safe for the first wave and shoulder-hopped my way in. Second wave I was a fair bit braver and picked up a big set wave from way out back. This morphed into the biggest wave of the day, perhaps double-masthigh on take-off and it was all I could do to get down the front of it and get out the way. I remember taking the drop absolutely flat stick – it must have been 35knots as I know how fast this kit goes – and I was still only just pulling away from it. I looked down the line and thought about a bottom turn by which time it was already too late. All I could do was wait for the wave to slow down and let me make a turn. I think I’m going to lose the 2 front fins for next time! And for sure it’s much harder to outrun big waves when it’s not cross off and smooth.
After that the waves seemed a bit smaller and were letting me do some turns. It wasn’t long before I was looking for some mackers again and couldn’t help noticing another reef off the Pentire headland breaking way out to sea in the corner of my eye. I’d heard of Zorba reef but never seen it break – I figured this must be it! -The Cribbar’s bigger brother!
It occurred to me that this was the ideal day to give it a go -the cross shore wind would make it a bit safer if anything broke and it was actually pretty windy, so sailing the 2 miles out to sea wouldn’t be too much of a mission. Plus it looked a lot cleaner than the Cribbar, so off I went. It felt sketchy as hell being out there so I only dropped down a couple before heading back in. It was a much mellower wave but almost certainly bigger! I rode the same swell all the way back into the bay, and then decided to ride it for a bit as it broke into North Fistral before kicking out. This didn’t quite go to plan and I ended up trapped and had to ride the wave to the beach, which I nearly managed until the wind dropped and the mast high wall of white water engulfed me. I was washed back in and onto terra firma feeling pretty pleased to be in one piece. I then walked the kit back round to the Little Fistral van park and saw there were hundreds of people lining the headland at Towan. They were all watching the surfers towing in at the Cribbar, along with dozens of photographers and a TV crew! My plan was to hit Gwithian for mid tide on the push, and after watching the surfing for twenty minutes and seeing that it had gone right of the boil, I did just that and drove away from the possible internet fame and glory.