Cronulla’s Jay Brown made the quarter-finals of the first surfing contest of the year as Jan Juc’s Xavier Huxtable and Molly Picklum from Shelly Beach took out the Hydralyte Sports Queensland Pro Junior on North Stradbroke Island after a massive weekend of surfing.
Competitors surfed good four to six foot lefts reeling down Main Beach along with moderate south-easterly winds and plenty of spectators.
“It feels pretty amazing to win today,” Huxtable said.
“Obviously this is my first Pro Junior win which is pretty amazing. Hopefully I can keep the ball rolling into 2019 and have a great season.
“It's looking like it should be a good year. I'm looking forward to around six more similar comps, travelling the world and finding sick waves. 2019 should be awesome.”
Molly won the women's division of the event after one of the most exciting heats all weekend.
She defeated Holly Williams (Buddina, QLD), Nyxie Ryan (Lennox Head, NSW) and Pacha Light (Tugun, QLD) in the final heat.
Event two of the Hydralyte Sports Pro Junior will be held at Cronulla on April 27 and 28. Jay hopes he can go two more heats and surf in the final on his home beach.
Surfing NSW has announced its 2019 events calendar with more than 40 events confirmed to be taking place over the calendar year, with proceedings getting underway from January 15 to 17 when the Rip Curl GromSearch national final kicks off next door in the Illawarra.
Benchmark events on the calendar include the Vissla Sydney Surf Pro, the Vissla NSW Pro Surf Series (Carve Pro, Mothernest Great Lakes Pro and Vissla Central Coast Pro), the Port Stephens Pro and the Australian Surf Festival.
The Carve Pro will be the closest contest kicking off at Maroubra Beach from this January when it kick-starts the 2019 Australasian World Surf League Qualifying Series (QS) leg.
The elite four-day QS1000 rated event will form the first of three stops on the Vissla NSW Pro Surf Series and will take place in Maroubra Beach from January 23 to 26.
Cronulla’s Shane Campbell is the defending champion and along with locals Jared Hickel and Jay Brown will once again be trying to kick off the WQS competitive year on a high note.
The Vissla NSW Pro Surf Series was developed for Australian and international surfers to gain ranking points and prize money on the WSL Qualifying Series.
It also creates a NSW coastal road trip to explore the variety of waves and visit local communities.
Cronulla surfers are stuck in a world of hot Groundhogs with everyday almost the same with small wind swells coming and going with the wind direction.
Monday’s surprise 3ft sou-east swell didn't hurt until the howling nor'easter turned it around into a 2 ft swell yesterday.
The forecast got it right for today’s 3-4ft nor east swell to be as good as it gets this week with most days hanging around the same size until Friday- there is enough east in it to give us some joy and there are some decent sets so don't waste it because it will get smaller over the weekend and flat by Monday.
The winds are not the best but beggars can't be chooses and onshores are the order of the day and the banks aren't too good on the low tide so try and hit it at High.
I took todays pics over a couple of days where the nor'easter was doing some damage and the morning had some glass it was hard to take a pic this morning because of the weird onshore light.
Finally the opening day of the Rip Curl GromSearch presented by Flight Centre National Final saw some of Australia’s most talented young surfers shining in difficult conditions at Stanwell Park as the event tore through the opening rounds.
With parallel Rip Curl GromSearch Series in over 10 countries, the series has become a crucial stepping-stone in the development of junior surfers right across the globe.
The list of previous GromSearch winners illustrates the prestigious history of the series, with World Surf League (WSL) competitors Gabriel Medina (Brazil), Tyler Wright (Australia), Owen Wright (Australia), Matt Wilkinson (Australia), Jordy Smith (South Africa), Kolohe Andino (USA) and Sally Fitz gibbons (Australia) among the list of former competitors and Grom Search International Final Champions.
The Australian series is made up of five events as well as a National final. Participants for the National final are determined from the GromSearch ratings, counting a surfers best 2 results across the series. In 2018 the winner of each division in each respective event of the series will be guaranteed entry into the National final, their seed in the National final will be determined by their best 2 results total on the 2018 Rip Curl GromSearch Rankings.
