Claw Warbrick has been bouncing around and wringing his hands a little more than usual in the past two weeks. Rip Curl’s founder has been on hand to witness the glut of North Shore swell, “one of the better seasons I’ve seen”. An avid analyst of the pro surfing, Claw loves to pick the game apart – waves, boards, surfers, judging – he loves the interplay. After 36 North Shore winters – give or take one or two – Claw is pretty well placed to give a perspective on what has gone down this December, the big shifts and the little ones. On The Rock caught up with Claw the day before the Pipe Masters final.

OTR: So Claw, how many North Shore winters does this make?
Claw: I think the first year I came to the North Shore was the season of ’72, and we stayed all the way into January. I certainly haven’t come every year, but I can recall being there in those hot years in ‘75 and ’76, supporting the boys. [Laughing, referring to the whole Busting Down The Door era when the friction between the Hawaiians and the Australians got heated to say the least].

So you managed to get out in one piece.
Managed to get out in one piece, helped a couple of the Aussie boys get out. They were good times.

How would you sum up the changes in the place over 36 years?
On one hand there’s enormous changes and differences in the place, but on the other hand its broadly the same. All those reefs are in place and those smashing swells still come in from the North Pacific. So the shoreline hasn’t changed too much, but from the building line its unrecognisable. Everyone’s built and crept up as close to they can to the ocean.

Do you still get excited on the plane on the way over thinking about what you’re going to see?
I always get excited to come to the North Shore at this time of year because it’s a unique place, not only for the surf and the waves themselves, but every year there’s a new crop of challengers taking on the waves. Every year there’s better equipment and better surfing. I’ve got to say in the last several years the guys have charged harder on the high impact, close to the shore breaks like Pipe and Off The Wall. They’re surfing them more fearlessly. They’re surfing them deeper and later and taking new and more daring angles. It’s inspirational to watch.

What’s your take on the surfing at the Pipe Masters you saw yesterday?
I had mixed feelings about yesterday. It was a great day of contest surfing, you get all those high nines, Joel gets two 10s, and they looked for all the world to be 10s to me. But some heats pumped and others were short of waves. I do think that at a small size at Pipe and Backdoor the overlapping format didn’t work very well at all. Too many heads in the water primarily. You basically had a 20-minute heat and it was like one surfer had a handicap, depending on how they went during the previous 20-minutes when they had to fight for scraps. I just thought that when the surf was inconsistent it had a big effect on the results. And if you wanted to be proactive in the first 20 minutes wen you didn’t have priority, the chances of causing an interference were high. But look, there was some exceptional surfing but I don’t think under this circumstance the overlapping system worked, I would have even preferred seeing just 20-minute heats. At least it has a defined start and finish point.

What’s the best thing you’ve seen in the water in terms of performance surfing this winter?
I guess Joel’s 10s, they were exceptional. Along Pipe to Off The Wall it’s the usual suspects, really. It’s inspirational to watch. The contrast to Sunset though is noticeable. So many guys focus their surfing between Pipe and Off The Wall, they might surf a little Logs, all the hard, vicious, breaking-close-to-the-shore-death-pit kind of things. But some guys still ride some of the bigger, oceanic waves. The contrast at Sunset is amazing. I didn’t see the bigger, wilder days, but I saw the final day when the swell was west and there were the huge A-framing west peaks, classic Sunset. It’s such a massive venue, and it’s such massive water with huge, drawing faces. It’s an entirely different type of wave to the one just a kilometre down the beach. My wrap on the Sunset event was that there were two winners. One winner was CJ Hobgood; outstanding performance, last man standing, and one of the few goofies to win there. But the other winner was Sunset Beach. It was classic Sunset on that last day and we saw a different kind of surfing. When it’s like that it’s just a matter of time before Sunset Beach did up the competitors – whether it was a west peak that broke on them and drove them through their board, shortened them, their surfboard, shortened their heat. It all became about lining up the ocean’s energy.
I really noticed the undersize boards being surfed, and that’s a remarkable thing about the ASP criteria being directed towards radical and extreme turns. You virtually only get scored for radical turns or barrels, but there’s a lot more to surfing than that, especially at Sunset. The criteria doesn’t allow the judges to reward some of the subtleties that are excellent surfing and you need at Sunset. There’s a lot of those subtleties and filler time when you surf a place like Sunset. If you’re coming down 25 foot of face, it takes a lot of time to get from the lip to the bottom turn, and there’s a lot of stuff those guys are doing at a place like Sunset that doesn’t get regarded by the criteria. You get to big Sunset and it’s a different environment and it becomes a different canvas. Hang on, now I’m talking about surfing as an art! [Cracks up] No scores in the art department!

In the 70s and 80s especially, Hawaii was regarded as maker or breaker of a surfer’s career. Still true today?
I don’t think you could be broadly regarded – or a surfer regard themselves – as reaching the pinnacle unless they cut the mustard here, and these days they probably do want the hamburger with the lot. They’d prefer to produce outstanding performances all along the strip. Pipe to Off The Wall especially, but I think they’d like to display a broader range of performance, definitely be able to cope with Sunset Beach and perform there, and any of the main breaks in the main two-mile stretch of the Seven Mile Miracle. They may not necessarily want to take on Waimea or the cloudbreaks. There’s a lot of swinging from ropes these days, and a lot of them don’t want to do that.

Kekoa Bacalso has made the cut for the 2009 Dream Tour. Thoughts?
I’ve seen him surf a lot. He’s a very interesting character. He’s got the ability to come up with big results like the World Junior Championship and the odd 6-star on the ‘QS. I think he’s a force to be reckoned with. He’s an interesting mix. He’s solid, hard to knock off the board, he’s got big power turns, but because of his young age he’s got all the new age moves there as well. And I think he reads the barrel well. He’s had wildcards at the top level, so he’s seen it before and I think he’s ready to go. If he has some application and discipline it wouldn’t surprise me to see him go top 10. I think he’s got the ability to put the hammer down and make life interesting for the top guys.

And are we seeing the beginning of a Steph Gilmore dynasty?
Steph’s got some challenges, and one of those is her immediate success. Statistically the highest success rate of any surfer on the world stage so far. She had three wildcard starts for three wins, she won four of eight last year, she’s won four of seven this year with one to go. That’s a record any surfers would long for. Her challenge will be to maintain the motivation. She’s 20 years old and she’s got two world titles. The sky’s the limit, but the other thing is she’s probably the tip of the iceberg in female surfing. The girls are achieving surfing levels along the lines of the guys, and not to a far lower extent. I know of 15 or 20 young females who are outstanding, and they’re spread throughout the world. We’ve got a plethora of them in Australia, there’s several in Hawaii, Europe, South America. Steph’s in the fortunate position where she could gain motivation from those girls as they grow up. They’ll keep her honest. Some of them, are going to attack her with athleticism, some of them are going to attack her with wave catching skills and smarts on priority, others will be outright brilliant surfers. If she takes that the right way, each new crop can be an inspiration to her and help her lift and develop her surfing. I think it’s a similar position to what Kelly was in. He came in and basically changed surfing, which is what Steph has done. And then Kelly had to knock down generations of talent. The talent is probably more immediately obvious in Stephanie’s case. She’s going to be the one they’re all after. In Kelly’s case it took a while before new, high-end surfers came along. One of the things you’ve got to give him credit for, when he started showing signs of losing motivation and slowing, he had his sabbatical. He had his break, and his surfing since has been remarkable. When he came back there was a new superstar called Andy Irons, and Andy beat Kelly convincingly three times in a row. Andy’s one of the greatest, but Kelly dug deep and came back to win another one. Mick Fanning got on such a roll, his will to win was like a runaway train. Same thing happens again this year; Kelly gets back on the horse and wins again. It’s remarkable. In Steph’s case, if she s injury free and motivated, it could be a Steph Gilmore dynasty… which wouldn’t be a bad thing to see. [Much chuckling and hand wringing ensues, Claw style].