First pointscore at Scarborough

By Ian Pepper, of the Scarborough Boardriders

Our season went off with a bang for 2023 with a hot summer’s day and fun 2-3 foot waves at our favourite beach, Scarborough, on January 29.

Plenty of waves to go around for all grades including the mighty Micros.

Will Clark got down to business in the A Grade, laying down some heavy hacks to dominate the final. DP picked up good sized sets to place 2nd. Rod and Harrison broke the fins free but it wasn’t enough to get the job done.

In the Open Women’s, reigning champ Kasey Hargreaves stamped her influence early with some tidy carves on the set waves earning her first win in ’23. Shyla Short was bashing the lip on her backhand and picked up second while we welcome the return of Skye Burgess, always a threat, finishing 3rd.

We had a bit of a lightning scare, which shut down the comp for a while, but once the coast was clear we were good to go after consulting with the lifeguards. And we had Christian on the Wollongong Council JetSki for part of the day also ensuring additional safety all round. Thanks to all involved.

The following weekend we were off to Newcastle for the finals of the Australian Boardriders Battle. We had a fairytale start, a dream come true, but it wasn’t to last. The first day saw three of our four surfers finish 1st in their heats in our strongest result ever at this event. This included a 9.33 for Nic Squiers, which held up as the highest score of the comp until the finals. Sunday was a different story as we advanced directly to the quarter finals.

We slipped to 3rd right at the death. The high scores simply weren’t high enough. It was still an outstanding effort so thanks to our surfers, support crew and club members who travelled up for the event or watched online.