Earl hung in there for Day 2 as everyone woke up to overhead pumping sets with light offshore winds. We kicked off the day with womens heats that lead in to Longboard heats and so forth. The womens heats were stacked with surfers like Mia Gallagher, Sophie Whalen and Symcha Sachs all dropping score above the 14 pt mark. Belmar local and former Womens champ Jessica Kwiecinski made it through her heat with a 2nd to get into the womens Semis for finals day tomorrow.
As the mid-day tide dropped, the wind swung around from out of the southeast and started to pick up and give a sideshore texture for the rest of the day with some heavy dumping sets on the inside.
The Masters division saw Mark Gilmartin, FL’s Josh Nicastro, Dane Hoskins and Colin McNamara dropping solid score to get into the semis. Longboard saw Jake DeMatteo, Ty Roach, Kai St George and Keaton Fortney all dropping solid scores, but multiple time Belmar Pro longboard champ (seriously, we literally lost count of how many times he won it!) Tony Silvagni was another level and once again did things guys on shortboards struggle to do , nailing a 17+ heat score. Sr Men division saw former champ Jack Murphy battle Chris Carbone in his heat with both advancing to semi’s as another Jersey legend Justin Citta made an appearance and made his heat into the semis as well.
The day finished up with Mens Round 4 heats that saw former Belmar Local and now Hurley employee California transplant Logan Kamen battling back in forth with an in-form Caleb Ropson from Barbados. Both surfers were among the handful of standouts today.
Tomorrow we resume heats at 9 am kicking off with a tribute of silence in memory of 9/11.
All the vendors will be set up and live music as well.
All photos by @drstockdalephotography :