The ASP has dropped the schedule for next years tour. There are brace of interesting nuggets:

• Fiji is back.
• The Rip Curl Pro Search is not on.
• The New York event stays.
• Thurso event cancelled.
• The women’s series finishes sadly again in August.

So here’s the World Tour, or as it now seems to be known the World Title Series.

2012 ASP World Title Series:
Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast – Australia (February 25 – March 7, 2012)
Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach – Australia (April 3 – 14, 2012)
Billabong Rio Pro – Brazil (May 9 – 20, 2012)
Volcom Pro Fiji – Fiji (June 3 – 16, 2012)
Billabong Pro Jeffreys Bay – South Africa (July 11 – 22, 2012)
Billabong Pro Teahupoo – Tahiti (August 16 – 27, 2012)
Quiksilver Pro New York – USA (September 2 – 14, 2012)
Hurley Pro at Trestles – USA (September 15 – 23, 2012)
Quiksilver Pro France – France (September 26 – October 6, 2012)
Rip Curl Pro Portugal – Portugal (October 7 – 17, 2012)
Billabong Pipe Masters – Hawaii (December 8 – 20, 2012)

Neatly sandwiching J-Bay is the welcome return of Fiji, so Kelly won’t have to skip an event to surf epic Cloudbreak.

Notably absent from the 2012 ASP World Title Series schedule is the Rip Curl Pro Search, but the event will return in 2013. This is what Rip Curl’s Neil Ridgeway had to say,
“We are taking a year off from the front line of running the event and putting a solid 18 months into the planning of the 2013 Rip Curl Pro Search. To take the Search to the next level is always the goal. We do that every year, but following San Francisco and the twist it delivered to the surfing world we feel we need more time and care to really blow minds.”

As to where it would be in 2013?
Well, Europe has to be high on the agenda with the Canaries or Ireland as obvious spots. With no Coldwater Classic Series in 2012 on the Star tour (particularly painful for us as it means the always fun Thurso event is gone) it also frees up Thurso as an unlikely option. Then there’s the Mentawais which is more doable with the smaller field of surfers or Nias…

The 2012 ASP Women’s World Title Series runs as follows.

2012 ASP Women’s World Title Series:
Roxy Pro Gold Coast – Australia (February 25 – March 7, 2012)
Rip Curl Women’s Pro Bells Beach – Australia (April 3 – 9, 2012)
Subaru Pro Women’s Surf Festival – New Zealand (April 11 – 15, 2012)
Commonwealth Bank Beachley Classic – Australia (April 18 – 23, 2012)
Billabong Rio Pro – Brazil (May 9 – 20, 2012)
Roxy Pro Biarritz – France (July 9 – 15, 2012)
Nike US Open of Surfing – USA (July 30 – August 5, 2012)

It’s a real shame there’s no Hawaii events to finish off with yet again.