ASP Update: Yellow Alert is Off for South Africa's Dungeons

The ASP Big Wave World Tour (BWWT) has called off the Yellow Alert for the Dungeons Challenge in South Africa. After closely monitoring a system that has been traveling toward Cape Town, event organizers have reassessed the approaching swell, which has not formed as expected.

Earlier in the week, the storm system moving toward South Africa had appeared to be promising, and might have allowed the second potential BWWT event of the season to run. “We are starting to see some storm activity that we are getting excited about,” BWWT Commissioner Peter Mel said Tuesday. “With only a couple of weeks left in the waiting period these are positive times and it would be great to finish the Southern Hemisphere leg with a bang.”

The 2014/2015 BWWT season is divided into halves between the Southern and Northern Hemisphere, with three possible events running in each. With just under three weeks remaining the Southern Hemisphere window (April 15 - August 31) the BWWT has completed one event so far, the Billabong Pico Alto in Peru.

The Big Wave World Tour has been waiting for swells to develop in South Africa and Chile, which is set to host the 2014 Quiksilver Ceremonial. The Northern Hemisphere window runs from October 15, 2014 to February 28, 2015 with potential events in Mexico, the Basque Region of Spain, and Maui.

The first event of the 2014/2015 ASP BWWT season, the Billabong Pico Alto, ran on Thursday, July 3, 2014 and saw Hawaiian Makua Rothman claim his first ASP BWWT victory. The ASP wildcard, an accomplished big wave charger, defeated reigning World Champion, Grant 'Twiggy' Baker (ZAF), announcing himself as a major threat on the ASP BWWT.

A team of experts track swell systems around the world, waiting for those that will produce waves in the 30-foot-and-larger range for one of the six world-class big wave contest venues.

Surfline, official forecaster for the 2014/2015 ASP BWWT season, is reporting the following:

The medium-range charts and models are finally showing something that looks a little more promising for Dungeons, currently on track for Mon-Tue the 18th-19th, from a fetch that will pull together over the next few days. While the swell doesn't look huge at this time, it does at least look to be on the threshold of minimum-run requirements.

If the storm behaves as forecast in the next few days we would see an 11-12' deepwater swell (3.5+ meters) peak during the overnight hours from Monday to Tuesday. The largest waves would be found late Monday and Tuesday morning, with an easing trend through Tuesday. Wave face sizes would be in the 20-25'+ range and possibly pushing toward 30' faces on the max sets Monday sunset and Tuesday early. Stay tuned, we'll refine this over the next few days as we see the storm develop.

Winds are a bit of a question mark, especially this far out. Different wind models are indicating varying wind scenarios right now so we're low confidence on any specifics. Best guess right now is for light/variable southerly wind on Monday with building NW to W wind Tuesday. Again, this will slowly shake out over the next couple days and we will be able to fine tune things a bit.

The 24-man fields for the Dungeons Challenge will be comprised of the ASP BWWT Top 12 as well as six ASP wildcards and six local wildcards:

ASP BWWT Top 12 & Rankings

Dungeons ASP BWWT Wildcards
1 Kelly Slater (USA)
2 Shane Dorian (HAW)
3 Mark Healey (HAW)
4 Ian Walsh (HAW)
5 Gabriel Villaran (PER)
6 Matthew Bromley (ZAF)

ASP BWWT Alternates:
1. Carlos Burle (BRA)
2. Albee Layer (HAW)
3. Makua Rothman (HAW)

Dungeons Local Wildcards
1 Mike Schlebach
2 James Taylor
3 Simon Lowe
4 Josh Redman
5 Chris Bertish
6 Andrew Marr

Local Alternates
1. James Lowe
2. Frank Solomon
3. Jeremy Johnson

ASP will provide updates as they become available.

The Dungeons Challenge will be webcast LIVE on this site.