Kei­th Lewis

Or­gan­is­ers and surfers of the Surf­ing T&T To­ba­go Pro 2012 fi­nal­ly got what they wait­ed all year for–a huge swell–big enough to pro­duce waves of enough con­se­quence to run the open di­vi­sion of this pres­ti­gious event on Sun­day, De­cem­ber 23.

The open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the 2012 edi­tion of the To­ba­go Pro took place at the end of De­cem­ber 2011 when all oth­er di­vi­sions were run in ex­cel­lent surf at the world fa­mous Mt Irvine Beach.

How­ev­er, in or­der to run the open di­vi­sion, or­gan­is­ers set out a year long wait in hope of a swell that would pro­duce waves big enough to do jus­tice to the event and its memo­r­i­al tro­phy name­sake, Scott Tuck­er.

Scott loved big, pow­er­ful waves and he en­joyed surf­ing them with his friends. On the very last Sun­day of the wait­ing pe­ri­od, as if a per­fect plan were be­ing ex­e­cut­ed, or­gan­is­ers got the waves and the surfers, and Scott's pres­ence was def­i­nite­ly felt. Of­fi­cials and me­dia gath­ered on the beach to wit­ness the waves get big­ger and big­ger all morn­ing.

There were 19 en­trants and the names were di­vid­ed by seed­ing in­to three heats. The top two surfers in each heat ad­vanced to the grand fi­nal. The surfers put on an epic dis­play and demon­strat­ed the ca­ma­raderie that makes lo­cal surf­ing ex­tra spe­cial.

There were 17 lo­cal surfers and two In­ter­na­tion­al in­vit­ed surfers, one from the US and one from Aus­tralia.

The top three surfers in the fi­nal made the judges re­al­ly work for their pay, as they all had ex­cel­lent rides in the peak­ing swell. In third place over­all was lo­cal surf­board shaper and back­side surf­ing pow­er­house Alan Davis, while Stu­art Hut­ton, who re­cent­ly re­cov­ered from a se­ri­ous knee in­jury and made an in­cred­i­ble come­back af­ter near­ly two years, was sec­ond.

Win­ner was Adri­an De Sil­va, who was com­pet­ing on the day be­fore his 18th birth­day. De Sil­va ded­i­cat­ed his win to his dy­ing grand­fa­ther. The per­for­mance was es­pe­cial­ly im­pres­sive as he was the youngest and least ex­pe­ri­enced of the fi­nal­ists. He surfed well be­yond his years, show­ing knowl­edge and pow­er of a sea­soned vet­er­an.

Quite fit­ting al­so was the fact that he was the on­ly surfer in the fi­nal that could tru­ly be con­sid­ered a To­ba­go lo­cal, hav­ing lived his en­tire life in To­ba­go with his fam­i­ly. De Sil­va's name will be en­graved on to the Scott Tuck­er Memo­r­i­al Tro­phy and he will go down in T&T surf­ing his­to­ry as the first to have this ho­n­our. He was al­so award­ed a Scott Tuck­er Memo­r­i­al Surf­board from Sharp Eye Surf­boards.

The Most Out­stand­ing Wa­ter­man prize, which is for the surfers who not on­ly ex­cels in the surf­ing per­for­mance are­na of the con­test, but is al­so a stand­out all-round Wa­ter­man, was al­so de­cid­ed.

Stu­art Hut­ton was the re­cip­i­ent which en­ti­tled his name to be en­graved on the Scott Tuck­er Memo­r­i­al Tro­phy and he was award­ed with a Scott Tuck­er Memo­r­i­al Surf­board from Lost Surf­boards. He was al­so the best per­form­ing over 35 (mas­ter) surfer and was re­ward­ed with two nights at the Blue Wa­ters Inn, Spey­side.

In the Un­der 18 (Ju­niors) di­vi­sion, the sep­a­ra­tion be­tween the top three surfers was less than two points, which spoke vol­umes for the per­for­mance lev­els. First place went to Caelum Bland­ford who man­aged to claim a nice bar­rel in the mid­dle sec­tion of a long point wave. In a great show­ing of sports­man­ship and ca­ma­raderie, Bland­ford was car­ried to the podi­um on the shoul­ders of his fel­low com­peti­tors to cel­e­brate the vic­to­ry. De Sil­va was sec­ond while Math­ew Milne was third.

In the Mi­ni-Groms (U13) di­vi­sion, all the kids ex­ceed­ed ex­pec­ta­tions. The goal of this di­vi­sion was to en­sure that it was not too com­pet­i­tive and that all the kids had fun.

Some of the high­lights were Joana Ap­pari­cio who was the Charg­er of the Biggest Waves which she did un-as­sist­ed and won $500 to­wards a cus­tom made surf­board from Alan Davis Surf­boards, and Kai St George who was the Best Over­all U13 Per­former and won a Sharp Eye Surf­board. An­oth­er stand­out surfer was Cur­tis De Sil­va who com­pet­ed in both U18 and U13 di­vi­sions and was the event's Most Im­proved Surfer and took home an ex­ten­sive prize pack­age.

On De­cem­ber 30, the To­ba­go Pro had its of­fi­cial prize-giv­ing on Mt Irvine where Scott Tuck­ers par­ents and fam­i­ly were on hand to present the win­ners with their prizes. This oc­ca­sion was al­so used to com­mem­o­rate the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the To­ba­go Pro 2013. Event or­gan­is­ers would like to thank con­test di­rec­tor Ja­son Ap­pari­cio, judges (War­ren Ros­tant, Troy Hadeed, Ravin Ramkissoon), sup­port­ers, and most im­por­tant­ly the spon­sors that made this event pos­si­ble.

These are The Surf­ing As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SATT), The Tuck­er Fam­i­ly, Blue Wa­ters Inn, The Shade Night Club, To­ba­go Wa­ter, Soul­jahs HD, Sharp Eye Surf­boards, Alan Davis Surf­boards, Ja­son Ap­pari­cio Surf Acad­e­my, La­bel House Group of Com­pa­nies.

Re­sults

FI­NAL RE­SULTS

OPEN MEN'S DI­VI­SION

1. Adri­an De Sil­va

2. Stu­art Hut­ton

3. Alan Davis

4. Che Lovelace

5. Ja­son Ap­pari­cio

6. Stephen Maken­zie

7. Kei­th Lewis

JU­NIORS (U18)

1. Caelum Bland­ford

2. Adri­an De Sil­va

3. Math­ew Milne

MI­NI-GROMS (U13)

Joana Ap­pari­cio � Charg­er of Biggest Waves

Kai St George � Best Over­all Per­for­mance

Cur­tis De Sil­va � Most Im­proved Surfer

MAS­TERS (O35) � BEST PER­FOR­MANCE

Stu­art Hut­ton

MOST OUT­STAND­ING WA­TER­MAN

Stu­art Hut­ton