Autumn came early this week in Cronulla when a new south swell and south-west winds combined to kick the new surfing week off with classic conditions.
Monday was the pick with extreme tides following a full moon over the weekend.
The crowds were pretty savage even on Tuesday morning under a 20 knot easterly-devil wind, blue bottles and all. With 4-6 foot of swell the beaches didn't handle it too well either forcing everyone to surf in the protected corners or find a semi secret reef break to play with.
This morning’s conditions were back to better than average with the swell still around 4 foot and the wind blowing off the land. The crowd was still thick but spread up the beach a little.
The Swellnet forecast lets us down saying “Wednesday onwards will then see a steady drop in size and typical early light winds and afternoon NE breezes across the coast”. This is a bummer but looking further out there is some dynamic tropical activity expected to converge south of Fiji later next week which could result in the development of a major E/NE groundswell for our region either next weekend or early the following week.
WQS surfer Shane Campbell’s results have been on the rise over the Vissla NSW Pro Surf Series with a fighting third place finish at the the Komunity Project Great Lakes Pro last weekend.
It leaves his WQS rankings at a career high 11th and his Australasian rank at fourth after results of third, ninth, 13th and 17th – that only leaves first place left for his next contest, the Maitland and Port Stephens Toyota Pro world qualifying series 6000 event.
Shane and his Elouera team mates are set to shake up the nudie Australian Boardriders Battle Series IV National Final at Newcastle Beach this weekend after being given a wildcard due to WCT surfer Connor O’Leary’s presence. Good surfing will be on show that's for sure.
Keanu Asing and Macy Callaghan won the Komunity Project Great Lakes Pro presented by Rockstar. The pristine Boomerang Beach produced perfect conditions all event and finals day was no exception with finalists being treated to super clean 3-4 foot perfect left and right-hand peaks.
Defending event champion Wade Carmichael just pipped Campbell in the semis.
Attention Groms – the Ocean and Earth regional junior titles are the start of the pathway to NSW Junior and Grommet State Titles and the Australian Junior Titles. The eight Ocean and Earth Regional Title events will run between March and May.
The NSW Southern Beaches Junior Shortboard Regional Titles will be held at Cronulla (somewhere) on May 13 and 14.
The International Surfing Association (ISA) has announced that the 2017 VISSLA ISA World Junior Surfing Championship will gather surfing's top 18-years-and-under surfers to represent their nations and compete for gold from September 23 to October 1 in Japan. The event will take place at the superb break of Okuragahama Beach in Hyuga City on Japan's southern island of Kyushu.
The event has proven to provide a glimpse of the future stars of the sport ever since legendary surfer Tom Curren won the gold medal at the inaugural edition in 1980. The VISSLA ISA World Junior Surfing Championship is the largest junior surfing contest in the world, with the 2016 edition in the Azores breaking participation records for the second consecutive year with 371 athletes from 39 countries.
Finally the Nine Network and Surfing Australia have announced a new two-year partnership that will see surfing broadcast across free to air television and digital channels.
The partnership confirms the broadcast of 15 half hour episodes of mySURF.tv plus the broadcast of 12 monthly half hour shows called Surfing Australia TV.
The 15 mySURF.tv shows will be hosted by WSL commentator Ronnie Blakey with the Surfing Australia TV hosted by Nine sports presenter Sam Squiers.
Surfing everywhere you look!
