Coastalsurvey

Saturday, November 28, Stephanie Gilmore clinched her third consecutive women’s world title in solid surf at Sunset Beach. The 21-year-old Australian won the ASP Women’s World Title on points; 17-year-old Hawaiian Carissa Moore won the day’s event.

Earlier in the week contest organizers put the event on hold, waiting for a 6-meter swell to subside. By the time the final heats were run Saturday, Sunset was in fine form.

Carissa Moore setting up the bowl section to win at Sunset

“There were some legitimate bombs coming in out there,” Gilmore said, in a post-contest interview with ASP.

At the outset of the Women’s season there was some doubt as to whether there would be a Sunset event at all this year. The main sponsor for the event pulled out in February, leaving organizers scrambling to find new backers, the LA Times reported.

The past year has been tough for professional surfing, as traditional sponsors pare down marketing budgets and cut lower-ranked surfers. Top-ranked surfers have done well — between contest purses, incentive pay and sponsorships — but the competitors in the lower ranks are struggling to stay in the game, according to WAtoday.

Large disparities in pay are par for the course. The just-completed Women’s event at Sunset, for example, had a total prize of $90,000, whereas the upcoming showdown between Joel Patterson and Mick Fanning at Pipeline will offer a purse of $340,000.

Put into the larger context of the sporting world, however, surfing is small potatoes. Forbes Magazine estimated Kelly Slater’s annual earnings in 2008 to be about $3 million. Yet Sports Illustrated pegged Tiger Wood’s 2008 haul at about $128 million.

It seems unfair, until you consider that Slater, Moore and Gilmore are all getting paid to surf.