In a little over a month, one fearless South African surfer will be handed a return ticket to Hawaii (plus R20 000 in cash and over R30 000 in prizes) for winning the Striped Horse Challenge in association with RVCA, Twig Surfboards and Hurricane. The search for SA’s most committed big wave surfer closes at the end of September, so there’s still time to enter, but already there are some serious contenders.
With this mad drop at Dungeons filmed by Josh Rowe, Mike Schlebach has put himself in the running for the massive prize.
The judging panel, which is led by 2013/14 Big Wave World Tour champion Twiggy Baker, are going to have a tough time determining the winner from over 20 rides by 14 different big wave chargers that have been entered so far. They’ll be taking many things into consideration; not just wave height, but commitment level, the technical aspect of the ride, as well as what exactly constitutes ‘making a wave’ – which is always a highly debated subject, because these giant waves often don’t allow a rider to make it all the way to the channel to kick out. It’s definitely going to be interesting.
Jeremy Johnson stuck this incredible drop at Dungeons (filmed by Sacha Specker) but will the judges consider this a ‘make’?
On top of the massive reward for the winning big wave surfer, the videographer or photographer who recorded the standout ride will also earn themselves R10 000 cash. There’s also a chance for visitors to the stripedhorsechallenge.co.za website to win great prizes too. Once you’ve watched all the entries and determined your favourite, you can drop a comment below the ride and the best-rated comment each week wins an epic hamper from sponsors Striped Horse Craft Beer, RVCA and Hurricane.
Go to stripedhorsechallenge.co.za to view all the entries so far, or to enter your own mind-blowing big wave ride.
Another serious contender by Juria Muller (filmed by Josh Rowe), who made this perfect ride at Sunset Reef look easy.
