Malibu gets electrified for the first-ever Red Bull 5X night surf.
When the late October sun finally slipped into the Pacific, Malibu’s famous First Point came alive. There was a certain electricity in the air—literally—as event organizers flipped the switch on two huge portable lighting systems. Perched on cranes over a hundred feet above the beach, the lights blared 180,000 watts of July-afternoon-brightness onto the waves.
The local surfers still in the water were downright giddy with excitement about surfing their favorite break under stadium-style lighting. Although perfect shoulder-high waves were spinning off Malibu Point and reeling for hundreds of yards, the locals soon yielded their waves to five of the best female longboarders on the planet. The occasion: the first-ever Red Bull 5X night surf event.
Soul Surfing
In a much-needed move to filter some soul back into the world of competitive surfing, former pro surfer Mike de Nicola came up with a new contest format called the RB5X (pronounced “R-B-five-by”), as in five surfers competing head-to-head. The surfers compete in a 90-minute expression session, not just a 20-minute heat. And instead of leaving the scoring up to a panel of judges on the beach, the action is recorded by a team of video cameras and the surfers themselves declare the winner during a playback following the event.
De Nicola says the idea of RB5X is to push competitive surfing forward and give surfers the freedom to perform at their highest level. “With 90 minutes in the water the surfers have the chance to find a rhythm and pick the best waves,” says Los Angeles-based De Nicola. “It gives the surfers a chance to really show what they can do.”
For this, the third official RB5X, De Nicola picked five pro longboarders including Daize Shayne, Kim Hamrock, Schuyler McFerran, Mary Osborne, and Kassia Meador. The group represented a wide cross-section of the women’s pro surfing scene from tour-hardened veterans like Hamrock and Osborne to the wide-eyed and insanely talented newcomer, McFerran.
Lights, Camera, Action
As the five surfers paddled out at First Point, an impromptu crowd gathered on the beach. Though no doubt attracted to the lights like a swarm of moths, the spectators were soon treated to a surprise exhibition of some of the most beautiful and progressive longboarding in recent history.
Right away the surfers began taking full advantage of the peeling rights, logging impossibly long noserides with graceful footwork up and down the board. McFerran had a handful of beautiful rides that reeled all the way into the Bay as she just posted there, hanging ten. Shayne, Meador and Osborne seemed to answer back one-by-one with long rides of their own. But it was Meador who seemed to display the most ballet-like movements on the nose.
In her trademark attacking style, Hamrock slashed the surf and caught far more waves than her fellow competitors. It seemed as though Hamrock had tapped into the rhythm of the ocean—never missing a set.
With the 90-minute session at a close, the surfers rode their final waves to the sand but the lights remained on for more than an hour following the expression session. Despite a strong rain that began to fall as the event ended, the local surfers took full advantage of lights, descending on the waves in a feeding frenzy.
After Glow
Back on the beach, the competitors reconvened about their first nighttime RB5X: “It was so rad with no judges. You’re your own judge and you’re everybody else’s judge,” says pro surfer Kassia Meador of Oceanside, Calif. “The RB5X is a cool way to push each other and push our surfing to the next level. It’s more about earning the respect of your peers and seeing who threw down, who’s doing the craziest stuff and who was surfing the best.”
All of the surfers were also awe-struck by the beauty on the water. The lights seemed to illuminate the ocean, turning it a brilliant emerald green. And below the surf, the brightness caused the fish and other sea life to be extra active. “It was so beautiful on the water,” says veteran pro Kim Hamrock of Huntington Beach, Calif. “Actually it was kind of hard to surf at times because I was just mesmerized watching the bottom and the fish.”
The next morning, the five surfers met once again in Malibu to review the video footage of their expression session and pick a winner. Reliving wave after wave, the competitors laughed and teased each other, highlighting both the positives and the negatives of each rider’s performance. In the end, the surfers unanimously voted to award the RB5X win to Meador because of her quick and masterful footwork on the board and her risky, innovative maneuvers.
Television viewers will be able to catch the complete session on the FUEL network later this year.