SURFEST will extend to Monday for the first time ever if wild seas make it "absolutely necessary", organisers said yesterday afternoon.
Competition was called off this morning after checks at 7.30am and a second at 11am, as southerlies of 50 kilometres an hour lashed a rising southerly swell.
Organisers had run through the heats on Tuesday and Wednesday to make room in the schedule, and the walls of white water hitting Merewether today are in line with what was expected.
Surfest organisers had flagged a move to Newcastle Harbour's exciting rock-bottom right-hander if it began to break but with the swell deemed "too south" to get in there, the harbour option has been dropped in favour of an extra day at Merewether as a last resort.
Instead, after discussions with the World Surf League, the City of Newcastle and Roads and Maritime Services, competition can run until Monday afternoon - something never needed 35 times previously.
The City of Newcastle Pro and the AAP Consulting Women's Pro are each down to the final 32 entrants.
A call on conditions is due at 7.30am tomorrow, Friday.
Organisers stressed any decision to extend to Monday would be taken as a last resort.
Newcastle is the final stop on the current Qualifying Series (QS) tour but the top-flight Championship Tour resumes at Bells Beach in Victoria from April 10 and the CT entrants at Surfest have tight schedules both to travel and to prepare for a far more important event, as far as they are concerned.
Newcastle's Jackson Baker and Ryan Callinan and Europeans Leonardo Fioravanti and Frederico Morais are all bound for Torquay to take part in the first event on the Australian leg of the CT, which then moves to Margaret River in WA.
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