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Rip Curl Boardmasters Surf Festival Ends With Epic Wave Conditions

The 2004 Rip Curl Boardmasters Surf Festival, in association with The Daily Telegraph, returned for it’s concluding day at Fistral Beach, Newquay, for the final of the Men’s Rip Curl 4 Star World Qualifying Series Contest.

The weather gods smiled on the event with the expected swell increase arriving due to the effect that Hurricane Alex had on the Atlantic Ocean. Six-foot waves were on offer by the time the final arrived which was unthinkable at the start of the day when the organisers arrived to find an Ocean impersonating a millpond!

With the amazing surf conditions, the surfers really took advantage to put on a tremendous display for the crowd that had turned up despite the relatively gloomy overhead conditions with the occasional drop of rain. The man that made the most of the condition to take the Rip Curl Boardmasters Crown for 2004 was Renato Galvao from Brazil.

In a tense nail biting finish, Renato overtook Luke Munro from Australia who had seemed in control of the final after posting several solid scores in the sixes in the early stages. Trailing Luke until 20 seconds to the end of the final, Renato took off on a big left and took advantage of the huge wave with some enormous slashing cutbacks, vertical re-entries and smashing off the lip. It was particularly hard on Luke who had claimed the best wave and combined score of the whole competition.

Renato had entered the competition as a complete unknown but you would have never believed that this was his first final as he never panicked, even with 30 seconds to go. He was thankful for that last wave as he commented in his broken English, “I got a lucky wave right at the end. I prayed to God! Thank you all”.

The quarter finals had commenced earlier in the day with Tom Whitaker of Australia starting the slight favourite due to his World Championship Tour classification making him the highest placed surfer left in the competition, but he fell to the mighty impressive Royden Bryson of South Africa who had knocked out Russell Winter in a previous round. Renato Galvao from Brazil also went through in Royden’s heat and they were both joined by the Australian duo that had looked so impressive all competition, Luke Munro and James Wood. Ben Dunn from Australia and Jeremy Flores from the Reunion Islands both narrowly lost their heats but both showed they will be a force to be reckoned with in forthcoming years.

In another last day contest, the Rip Curl Tag Team overcame the Fosters Tag Team by the narrowest of margins. The Fosters team consisting of all the Winter brothers – Steve, Dean and Russell – and Mark Bannister (Banno) lost out to Jamie O’Brien, Ben Dunn and Rip Curl’s Marketing team, James Hendy and Mark Harris. Banno blamed the great hospitality that the Fosters Beach Bar had offered him all week for the loss!