Rebel Sessions 2011

There were some good sessions! (Photo: Rebel Sessions)

Rebel TV came to the party in 2011 for the Cape Town big wave scene, after the departure of the Red Bull left a large gap in the calendar. Though it was not the best big wave winter Cape Town has ever seen, there was one huge tow day and a couple of pretty hefty paddle days. More importantly some of the Cape's big wave chargers have got some well deserved travel budget for the Northern Hemisphere season. Well done to all involved, we look forward to next year's edition.

The inaugural Rebel Sessions 2011 awards winners were announced at a packed invite only ceremony held at La Cabane restaurant in Hout Bay on Friday night. The four award wining big wave surfers each pocketed a share of R110 000 in prize money for waves ridden at the Capes premier big wave venues this winter.
The Rebel Sessions is a unique big wave surfing awards event that ran for the first time this year from 15th July to the 22nd October. Over 100 days of winter the Rebel Session cameras filmed six sessions surfed with waves over 15 foot, the photographs and footage taken were used to judge the waves surfed and award prizes in four different categories.
The main award for the best-surfed paddle wave went to popular Kommetjie local Michael Schlebach who pocketed R50 000 for a long walling wailer he skillfully surfed at Dungeons. Michael has been charging big waves off the Cape peninsular for many years and was a standout surfer in every session he surfed through the winter. Accepting the check, trophy and framed photograph from the head of Rebel Media, Christian Herles, the broadly grinning surfer said that he was planning on spending the money on new surfboards.
Kommetjie surfer Andy Marr received R30 000 for the biggest tow wave of the season while Jeremy Johnson from Hout Bay got R20 000 for the biggest wave paddled into, and James Taylor received R10000 for the worst wipe out. The winning waves were all surfed at world-renowned Dungeons reef off Hout bay when the biggest swell of the winter hit the Cape of storms on the 21st and 22nd August.
Christian Herles also awarded a surprise "Surfer of the Sessions" award with R5000 going to young Durbanite Josh Redman for the commitment and skill he displayed in the water. Josh based himself in Cape Town for much of the winter and his fearless assault on the Capes big waves showed that he's a big wave talent to look out for in the future.
Awarding the prizes Christian said that Rebel Media would be back with the event next year because Cape Town is "one of the few places in the world that has a real big wave community and thats why (Cape Town) deserves the event and thats why Rebel Media bought the event here.".
The footage filmed will be edited into a documentary that will be distributed and aired worldwide by Rebel Media through their Rebel TV sports channel.


Rebel Sessions 2011 Big Wave awards winners (L-R) Best surfed paddle in wave Mike Schlebach (R50000), Sessions Surfers award, Josh Redman (R5000), Biggest Tow Surfed wave (R30000), Andy Marr (R30000) and Biggest paddle in wave, Jeremy Johnson (R20000) receive their awards at the prize giving in Hout Bay, South Africa 04 November 2011.