SOMEWHERE INDEED: Rip Curl's Neil Ridgway Talks 'Somewhere In Indo'

Somewhere Indeed

Neil Ridgway, Global Marketing Director for Rip Curl, reviews the Rip Curl Pro Search 'Somewhere in Indo' with SURFER magazine's Scott Bass. Reached in Indonesia via cell phone, Ridgway and the Rip Curl crew were celebrating a great event a few hours after Bruce Irons locked up the event by defeating Fred Patacchia.

SURFER: First off, congrats on a great event for 2008. There were some great story lines for the Rip Curl Search 2008. The first one is Kelly Slater, who had Tiago Pires comboed and somehow had the heat snatched from him, a feat that has never happened before to Slater. How did you see that go down from the scaffold?

NEIL RIDGWAY: Well you are right, it hadn't happened before and Kelly was in control all the way through the heat. But in the end Tiago did what Kelly usually does to the other competitors, he suckered punched him. Tiago lured him in, got the scores and beat Slater. Kelly was really magnanimous about it. He really handled it well. He did interviews afterwards, and came online and talked about it. I can't say he was happy, but he was a good sport, that's for sure…and Tiago Pires surfed unreal! And what a great story to have a surfer from Portugal slay the king.

SURFER: Well it was an opportunity for the other big guns Parko, Taj, and Mick to step up and gain some much-needed ground on Slater and they really didn't capitalize did they?

NEIL RIDGWAY: Well Joel Parkinson scored an 18.34. He had two 9s against Freddy P. that was the heat of the day. Fred got two really throaty barrels and took Parko out. Parko had 18 plus points in every heat he surfed. Freddy P. had a great event. It was really good to see Freddy surf a good event.

SURFER: Well, in the Final, Fred made a move up the point, away from Bruce Irons, and caught a wave that, if he had connected, may have changed the outcome of the heat.

NEIL RIDGWAY: 10 feet away Scott. That's it. I thought the move he made was great. Paddling up to the outside corner and getting away from the racetrack. If he had gotten 10 feet further on that wave it would have changed the heat for sure. That Final heat was probably the slowest heat of the day. But Brucey validated it when he got that 8.33. He killed it.

SURFER: It seems as soon as Bruce Irons decided to retire from the WCT he shed some anxiety and has been surfing really well in the comps. What are your thoughts on Bruce and free surfing in comps?

We couldn't find any photos of Neil, and when we found this photo fo the Rip Curl chicks, we stopped looking.

NEIL RIDGWAY: I think the indication of that was the semi with Wardo. It was a ding-dong battle of free surfing. There were no tactics. It was just pure free surfing. The boys didn't play tactics. Brucey could have lost in the last 30 seconds if Wardo would've simply paddled into a wave. Bruce had a 9 but not much else.

SURFER: On the other end of that was the Dane Reynolds / Danny Wills heat where we had a lot of tactics. Your thoughts on that interference ruling.

NEIL RIDGWAY: Dane would've scored, what we thought would've been a perfect 10. He had three barrels on one wave. But he interfered with Willsy. The rulebook is very clear. You've got to play by the rules to win. That's what Danny Wills did. Not taking anything away from Dane Reynolds. The wave that Dane got was absolutely epic. It was. It's just unfortunate.

SURFER: You're four for four with the Rip Curl Search event. Reunion, Mexico, Chile and now Indo, you guys have to be feeling pretty good, no?

NEIL RIDGWAY: We're stoked. There's a good party going on right now. The boys are going at it. But yeah, it's a hard event to put on, this one, because you are in a different country every year. You've got different communications, different culture, different everything, particularly this one because we only had about five months to plan it. We've had it in our minds to come here for about three years but it was under embargo by the ASP for a long time because of terrorism and political unrest. We convinced them to let us come here and we pulled it off and we are stoked.

SURFER: You've taken some flak with regards to holding a Search event in Western Australia.

NEIL RIDGWAY: In regards to WA, logistically we've learned a lot. We where pretty confident with Somewhere in WA. A) It is an epic wave. A Triple-A wave. B) We were going to build an insane tent city campsite. My vision was like 4077 M.A.S.H style campsite. And c) we were going to take the pros out of the great resorts and pampering and put them in the bush, put them in the desert and see what they are made of. That was the plan. We had it pretty well under control. Lots of support. Government support. Local community support. Social support. And we thought we had contacted all the local surfers that had a voice over there, but we hadn't. And when we found them, and found out they were pissed off, you know, we made efforts to contact them. I would have gone over there in a heartbeat and sat down and talked with them. They didn't want to talk. They didn't want to get on with it. But I hold out that in some time, within the next 3-5 years, we will go that location, and we will run a world-class event. And we will leave no footprint. We will do it environmentally sound. It is not a hard thing to do when you just sit down and talk. The Indonesian surfers, the ISC, they've been fantastic. And it was hard at first. But if you just sit and talk, things get worked out and it is a win/win.

SURFER: What about next year? Where will Rip Curl be taking us? What about Canada?

NEIL RIDGWAY: Too easy mate. Sounds good. We are only one of a couple of companies that can legitimately do really cold water events. All we want to do is run great surfing contests. If we can meet with the locals and they see that it is of benefit to them as well, it becomes much easier.

To hear this interview in its entirety, including talk about Captain Albert's Mongoose coffee, G-Land, Claw Warbrick, Dooma Hardman, Rincon, Tom Curren, Malibu, Alan Sarlo and much much more, all via podcast click here NOW!

Or go here:
Down The Line Surf Talk Radio

Attention savvy marketing folks and surf team managers: To have your people as a guest on XTRA's "Down The Line" send an email to SurfTalkSanDiego@Gmail.com