It’s Been a Sh*tty Season on the CT; Could J-Bay Be Different?

Looking back on the 2023 Championship Tour season, so far, the waves have been painfully mediocre. Not quite a nightmare, but definitely not a dream (tour).

Pipe? Head high at best, onshore. Sunset? Decent for Sunset’s standards. Portugal? Moments of greatness. Bells? Terrible. Margs? Average, no Box. Surf Ranch? Stale, boring (aside from the controversy). El Salvador? Small, wonky. Brazil? Blah.

Not to be a downer, but let’s be real…it’s been pretty sh*tty.

But could the curse finally be broken as the Tour heads to South Africa? By the looks of it (see above) the waves have been pumping leading up to the Corona Open J-Bay contest window, which kicks off on July 13th. No question the surfers (and fans) hope this swell sticks around, and there's more on the way for some proper conditions.

From the video description (as poorly translated from Portuguese via Google):

“It seems that it is becoming routine for peaks to break with high waves days before the start of the CT stage. In South Africa it is not being different from other places like Portugal, Brazil and Australia.

“The famous Jeffreys Bay right broke in classic conditions last July 8th and some of the best surfers in the world like John John Florence, Jo?o Chianca, Gabriel Medina, Yago Dora, took advantage of the long and icy South African rights to train for the ninth stage of the Championship Tour, which has a waiting window between July 13th and 22nd.”

How about the forecast for the coming days? Will the plague continue of good waves leading up to the contest window, then poof, the contest starts and…sh*t?

According to the Surfline official forecast:

Thu 13th: Small’ish surf, side/onshore wind. Probably off.

Fri 14th: Better wind but smaller than Thu. Probably off.

Sat 15th: Small surf. Probably off.

Sun 16th: Possible building surf. Possible run day.

Mon 17th: Building and possibly strong surf. Possible run day.

Not looking great. Guess there’s always Chopes. Go out with a bang, right?

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