Locals ripping at Oakberry Tweed Coast Pro

By Jo Kennett

WILD WAVES via Cyclone Gabrielle made for some challenging conditions in the opening rounds of the Tweed Coast Pro which kicked off with the junior event on Saturday, February 10.

The main event was relocated from Cabarita, which was too big and out of control, to Kingscliff, which was smaller but with chaotic conditions making it hard for any of the surfers to find a scoring wave in the main event.

The juniors started with better conditions before the bigger swell and the notorious Kingy rip kicked in.

Fingal Heads’ Dane Henry was on fire in the juniors, getting scores up in the 15s, some of the highest of the competition, as he blasted his way through to the quarter finals before bowing out.

Cabarita surfer Kyan Falvey also made it through to the quarter finals with some of the top scores in his rounds and scored some valuable points in the Junior Tour along the way before going down despite scoring a 7.27 wave.

Caba surfer Seb Bungate cruised through his first heat but lost out in his high scoring second heat.

Lennox Chell eventually took the win in the junior event.

Caba’s Maddi Parker won her round one heat but got knocked in round two, with Sierra Kerr eventually taking the title.

There were big points on offer in the Tweed Coast Pro Qualifying Series 5,000 event, with plenty of big name surfers including former pro Josh Kerr.

Kerr was competing alongside veteran charger Nathan Hedge and Soli Bailey, plus a stack of seasoned QS campaigners.

While the juniors were spared the rip, the surfers got out in the open event and were paddling flat out trying to get within cooee of the peak in front of the Cudgen Headland surf club.

Kyan Falvey came up against some big guns in the main event and was knocked out in his opening round in the difficult conditions.

Local fave and big wave rider Timmy Chalmers won his first round despite the crazy tricky conditions with 8.23 points in a low-scoring heat, but was knocked in the second, unable to find a decent scoring wave in the chaos.

He needed a 3.8 but no wave came.

Kingscliff Boardriders Mitch James was on fire in round one, somehow finding a 6.83 and a 6.17 for the highest total of the Round of 128, 13 points. He only just missed out on progressing through the next round, chasing 5.18 as the clock ran out.

Cabarita Boardriders Brent Savage also won his first heat with a total of ten points before bowing out in a high scoring second round. Fingal Heads’ Juluung Slabb got knocked out in the opening round.

Dane Henry was ripping in the main event, scoring a 11.33 in to take out his heat in the

Round of 96.

He was knocked out in the next round but said it was ‘sick’ to get the opportunity to surf against some of the bigger names.

He certainly showed he can mix it up with the best in the Qualifying Series.

Kingscliff Boardriders Micah Margieson needed a 6.37 in the Round of 64 as the last five minutes wound down.

He scratched into a wave with under a minute to go and built up some speed down the line but it pretty well went nowhere and he also bowed out.

Casuarina’s Zahli Kelly scraped through her heat with a 5.17 total in second spot to big-hitter Sarah Baume who scored a total of 11.3. In the open women’s comp, Maddi Parker and Fingal’s Jalaan Slabb both went down in the opener, as the event relocated back to Caba.

The biggest standout of the women’s was 11-year-old Tahitian Tya Zebrowski who scored 15.7 in the opening round against India Robinson, with Tweed Heads born prodigy Sierra Kerr making it through her heat in second place to Phillipa Anderson.

Stay tuned next week to see who took out the Tweed Coast Pro for 2023.