Defending champion Jordan Widenstrom left it to his last wave to snatch victory in the 2017 ‘Nugget’ Memorial contest on Saturday.
In the biggest field in the event’s 10-year history, four-time Cronulla club champion Widenstrom just defeated five-time Cronulla club champion Simon Taylor.
In a contest that had everything including rain, wind squalls and even a shark alarm stoppage the 70-strong field battled on, running seven-man heats and using two banks.
Celebrating the life of three-time club champion Troy ‘Nugget’ Dennehy, the field was littered with former champs returning to pay respect to Nugget and the Cronulla club which has now crowned its 40th club champion in Ricky Marshall.
Marshall also made the final along with former clubmate and world junior champion Jake Spooner, Matt Hurworth and Kurt Kiggins.
In the junior divisions, Fin Padman put together a perfect heat to win the under-16s final over Zac McMartin while Tate Browning took the win over Dane Decque in the battle of the under-13s.
In a sign of things to come Shelley Fitzpatrick won the six-strong women’s final over Lily Brown.
In Hawaii, Connor O’leary made it through the fourth round at the Haleiwa Hawaiian Pro whilst warming up for the final WCT Pipeline event .
In Connor’s best WQS result this year he dipped in the quarters for a 13th when he couldn't find a second scoring wave.
It was won by Filipe Toledo who overcame an early deficit in the Final to steamroll his way to the top of the podium. It's Toledo's first-ever victory on the North Shore and his third event win of 2017,
In China,the Inaugural Jeep International Hainan Cup World Surf League Men’s (QS) 3000 event ran in extremely tough 1ft onshore conditions. Round One saw Jared Hickel only catch one wave and exit competition.
Meanwhile back home Cronulla surfers have had some Nor East swell to deal with all week peaking yesterday at around 4 ft in the southern corner of the beach.
I took today's pics at the Alley on Tuesday morning when the swell was a good size but the tide was a little low-best on the incoming tide.
Swellnet predicts that was the top of the swell and its all downhill from here,with smaller surf with light winds predicted for the rest of the week . Saturday will also be small with a rebuilding East/Nor East swell and mainly light winds.
The Tradies Surfmasters wrapped up in challenging one-to-two foot waves at the Wall on the weekend.
Wayne Morrison (Port Macquarie) made his five-hour drive south worthwhile, taking the win in the Over-40 Shortboard division .
Up against three Cronulla locals, Morrison was able to nail a handful of decent backside snaps to get the win ahead of former WSL QS surfer and current surf coach Andy King (Cronulla/Currumbin) to take the win by less than a point.
Ricky Marshall and Matt Hurwurth made up the rest of the Cronulla trio who may have let the previous days activities interfere with their form!
The Over-60’s had the same problem when Bruce Flint (Kiama) did over Roachy,John Lavers and Greg Hourigan.
2017 was the eighth year the Tradies Surfmasters presented by HIF has run at Cronulla.
The World Surf League (WSL) has released the 2018 schedule of events covering the men's and women's Championship Tours, Qualifying Series, Pro Junior and Longboard tours as well as the WSL Big Wave Tour .
Key changes to the 2018 Championship Tour calendars include last week’s announcement of the CT event at Surf Ranch, Indonesia replacing Fiji, the world’s best women surfers joining the men at Jeffreys Bay in South Africa, as well as the removal of Cascais, Portugal and Trestles, USA for 2018 .
The Billabong Pipe Masters is on Dec 08 - 20th so hang on.
For more information, check out WorldSurfLeague.com
