The South Coast Surfing Championships started with registration at 8am sharp at Compton Bay car park. It was dark, gloomy and not exactly the biggest waves I’d ever seen. Many of the competitors must have been wondering what they were doing standing around in a car park so early in the morning with such tiny waves. After everyone had registered Matt Harwood called a postponement until 10.45am for a 11am start of the juniors.
Matt was very sure that by then the waves would be better and that the forecast for Sunday was for much bigger surf. At 10.45am Matt was right, the waves had got better but still not quite what everyone was hoping for. It was obvious that the Groms just wanted to get in the water and surf so the organisers made the decision to run and fun juniors competition on the Foam boards. A great turnout meant there to be 3 heats of 4 competitors in each heat (not quite as many as first planned as one of the mainland teams didn’t turn up).
First up was Matt Townsend, Robin Forrest, Dominic Arnold and Elliott Gray. The waves were very small and messy with a light south westerly blowing but the boys soon showed everyone that there were a few half decent waves to be ridden. Robin came out on top with Matt second while Dominic and Elliott came 3rd and 4th.
Heat 2 was Jamie King, Toby Greene, Ed Reed and Lucy Howell and they all started catching waves one after the other. A couple of the boys tried a few headstands while Lucy kept looking for a wave with a nice wall to it. The heat looked really close to call but Ed from the Island and Lucy from Shore coming out 1st and 2nd.
Heat 3 saw Thomas Louis Francis, Dylan Hamlet, Patrick White and Kirra Bell. Kirra stuck to the inside and had a bit of a slow start but eventually grabbed a few nice waves and pulled off switch foot to gain 2nd. The others battled it out on the outside with Dylan coming out on top by consistently getting long rides.
The Semi Finals were made up of two heats of three. Robin, Matt and Ed in Heat 1 found the waves had started to build and wave selection played a big part in the two Island boys Matt and Robin coming in 1st and 2nd.
Semi Final two saw Lucy of Shore battle it out with Dylan and Kirra. Dylan seemed to make it look so easy and came home 1st with Lucy’s wave choice meaning she picked up 2nd place in front of Kira.
The Final was so close to call with all the Finalists picking off some really good little waves. Eventually Matt Townsend won by picking off three really good waves towards the end of the final. Dylan came in 2nd with Robin 3rd and Lucy 4th.
