Having hit the road at 4am saturday morning to hit Whanga at first light so as to fit in a surf pre-event I was dubious in thought as to what I may find when I hit the coastal town shores. Apon arrival the bar didn't show much swell and seemed mostly flat but looking down the beach you could spot running white water walls that looked promising. Once rolling upto the main beach I was relieved and mildly excited to be greeted by fun 2-3ft glassy peelers. The swell had hung in despite the heavy SW winds overnight and was groomed and looked pretty sweet. We had a comp on our hands and perfect small surf for the Groms to perform. Mint! I had only brought down a 5'10" keel-fin twin-fin fish knowing it was going to be small and it reveled in these conditions, I caught plenty of waves in my 40min free surf before hittin the sand and legging it back to the "Titanic" to set up shop and get the judges together to start the day.
The Billabong Crew was in full effect and A.J and his lads had the place ship shape and ready to rock. Those guys could run a comp in their sleep, they have it so dialled.
Coffee in hand and a fun surf in mind we were under way as the young groms took to the fun right and lefts with abandon.
The shallow sandbanks at Whanga are well defined and despite it being called a "random-peak situation" for contest purposes the surfers had a left, an A-frame and righthand peak to choose from thru-out the tides. Admittedly the left or right would be more predominate depending on the tide but the smart young surfers who watched the previous heats to theirs could easily see the peak that was offering the better scoring potential.
Day 1 was a HUGE day of events, we ran about three quarters of the comp draw on the sat due to the contestable surf and prediction of diminshing waves for the sunday. With 15min heats and only a maximum of ten waves to lock in your two scoring rides the groms had to surf with a game plan and mostly seemed to. It always cracks me up at grom comps tho how the kids just seem to catch any wave that comes their way, there was certainly no problems with the wave count today,ha. The smarter and more experienced surfers usually try and be a little more selective but sometimes even they suffer from over-amping and catch some truely horrible waves. Classic.
The day was only a nine hour day which is pretty sweet and standard for the judges but by the end of the day I was keen for a swim and an icy cold beverage! Yet again A.J and the Bong crew came to the rescue. A chilly bin full of icy cold exports did the job nicely and Scott/Dan/Shaun /Keone/A.J, myself and Damo (video guru) endulged our parched thirsts. Perfect!
Day 2 and what a beautiful morning! I sauntered down to the beach under blue skies, keen to shake off my sleepy head and watched small but contestable 2ft glassy waves hit the shore.
If this was an Open pro event conditions would have been borderline but for the wee-tackers that froth on this event they were near perfect! In fact as the morning carried on heat by heat it got better and better with the peaky surf allowing for some exceptional surfing.
Its actually better if the surf isn't too big at these events because despite the groms not minding a good pumping 4ft+ day like the rest of us, alot of them can struggle to get out to begin the heat or back out in their heat after catching a wave. Don't forget the age divisions are U12/U14 and U16 boys and girls for these events and some of these surfing prodigys are only 3ft tall and weigh in at 25-30kgs dripping wet!
Check out the video to see how well they were surfing
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The best of the best (in no particular order) included: Korbin Hutchings, Paul Moretti, Althea Lock, Gabriela Sansom, Milly Crewe, Manu-Scott-Arrieta, Taine Craig Ranga and Tane Bowden.
By far tho the best surfing of the weekend was performed by two eventual division winners being : Dune Kennings for the boys and Ella Williams for the girls.
These kids surfed the best I have ever seen them surf! Awesome!
All in all, another sweet weekend out east and a big thank you to the Whanga Boardriders Club for the copious amounts of great food and to Billabong for the amazing hospitality!
sea you soon..IINAMI.
chur to Odyssey20/20 for the vision and Quiksilver for covering me.
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