The Ocean and Earth junior regional surfing titles are an important start of the pathway to NSW junior and grommet state titles as well as the Australian junior titles and provides surfers with necessary competition experience.
Competitors must reside in the NSW southern beaches region in order to compete in the titles which were held at Maroubra Beach in small offshore waves on the weekend.
Surfing numbers were down on last year’s event held at Cronulla but the surfing level was still red hot.
Surfing Sutherland Shire surfers put it to their competitors with April Davey winning the first final of the day in the under-16 girls division before Kash Brown took a fighting fourth in the super charged under-12 boys final and made the cut for the NSW grommet state titles.
In the under-14 boys final Sam Cornock was all over the small, good-shaped lefts laying down big turns for a little guy with his Cronulla competitor Cruz McKee picking up third place.
Jay Brown blew the under-18 boys final away at one point. Cronulla’s Fin Padman had a good contest picking up third.
In the competitive under-16 boys final SSS had three spots out of four but couldn't crack the win with Jordy Turansky taking second behind Bondi’s Grayson Hinrichs with Jarvis Earle and Dan Decoque third and fourth.
Its been the best of both worlds this week at the Nulla for boardriders -we have had 1ft to 10ft conditions and everything in between.
The East Coast Low swell peaked on monday afternoon with some big bomb sets ,the Point being the only place to surf-it dropped for Tuesday morning but still had some size on the beaches with 20 wave 6ft+ sets common.Funnily enough it wasn't very crowded and the Island also put on a brief but crowded show.
Swellnet predicted yesterday to be the pick but says” A mix of easing SE and new S'ly swells Wednesday with average winds, much better Thursday with a reinforcing S'ly groundswell and good winds all day. Large long-period S'ly groundswell building Friday afternoon as winds go onshore”
This morning the size was still good but the winds were blowing south with only a tinge of west in it making it pretty average although on the high tide there are a few rips.
It promises to be a good week in Cronulla with swell and offshore winds-I dont know how the banks have fared after Monday’s swell attack but time will tell.
Meanwhile in Brazzo land the Brazilian storm ignited Barrinha in pretty good waves early after they moved the contest down the beach.
The fourth stop on the WSL Championship Tour , the Oi Rio Pro, witnessed a strong showing from the Brazilians in men's Round 1. Out of the 14 Brazilian men in the draw , seven advanced to Round 3 after the completion of Round 1 and the first six heats of Round 2.
Jeep Frontrunners Italo Ferreira (BRA) dipped out in round 3 and Julian Wilson (AUS) advanced to Round 4 after a hard fought win over Alejo Muniz.
Connor O’Leary was unlucky not to take the win in his first heat after leading and eventually just finishing .17 behind Italo Ferreira when he couldn't find a wave.
It didn't get any better for him in round 2 going down to Kanoa Igarashi by .37 after a couple of 5’s - Kanoa pulled a 6 to just get the win.
This leaves Connor with another 25th place,not a good spot to be in,although in the cancelled Margaret River contest he is still alive when it is surfed at Ulu later on this year.
In the women's contest,conditions were pretty average for their first couple of rounds but Tyler,Sally and Steph are all still alive and into round three.