The Isle of Wight Surf Club Team came so close to getting on the podium and a 3rd place at this years Tiki National Interclub Surfing Championships. The gap between themselves and Croyde Surf Club – A Team was only 3 points.
Saturday started with some very challenging conditions and at least a couple of contestants didn’t even make it out to the line up. Even when you made it to the line up it looked difficult to to be in the right place when the sets came through.
As the day went on the swell cleaned up and we were treated to some great surfing. The Island Team finished the day in 4th place with James and Johnny both winning their heats. Johnny scoring a massive 8.5 score on a single wave.
On the Sunday the boys had all drawn the Island on their boards, very proud to be representing the Isle of Wight. Later some of them even had the names of Island breaks and their postcode on their boards.
The day started much smaller than the Saturday. Doug was first up again and got two waves scores early on.
There started to be a bit of a wait between the larger sets and you could see the frustration on faces as contestants looked for the best waves.
As Johnny paddled out a nice set came through just before they blew the horn then it seeemd to go flat for about 10 mins. I even started photographing Rock Pipits and a Cormorant, at which point I realised that if I had time to photograph wildlife during Johnny’s heat then he must be so frustrated. A few waves came through towards the end of the heat and he ripped them all the way to the beach. Typically just after the horn went a great set came through and you could see the frustration all the competitors faces in that heat.
It finished a very close thing between Croyde A Team and the Isle of Wight and after the event the conversations were all about how they lost the 3 points or how they could have gained those three points if only….. until someone said ‘so where are we going to surf now’ and it all changed to the where the next surf destination was to be. It was agreed on Sandymouth and within minutes cars were packed and they were on their way.
| Open Team Scores | |||||
| Club | Code | Sat | Sun | Grand Total | Placings |
| Westward Surf Club | WHO | 68.63 | 61.47 | 130.10 | 1 |
| Woolacombe Boardriders A | WBC A | 53.83 | 58.30 | 112.13 | 2 |
| Croyde Surf Club A | CSC A | 57.80 | 46.70 | 104.50 | 3 |
| Isle of Wight | IOW | 55.37 | 46.13 | 101.50 | 4 |
| Saunton Hot Doggers A | SHD A | 45.20 | 51.37 | 96.57 | 5 |
| Woolacombe Boardriders B | WBC B | 54.10 | 31.23 | 85.33 | 6 |
| Boscombe Surf Club A | BOS A | 44.22 | 38.53 | 82.75 | 7 |
| Croyde Surf Club B | CSC B | 28.63 | 32.77 | 61.40 | 8 |
| Boscombe Surf Club B | BOS B | 24.73 | 34.17 | 58.90 | 9 |
| Saunton Hot Doggers B | SHD B | 26.17 | 15.30 | 41.47 | 10 |
| Truro College | TRU | 18.67 | 14.27 | 32.93 | 11 |
A big thanks to the West Wight Landscape Partnership for sponsoring me to cover this event.