If you wanted to watch longboarding at its best then you should have been at The Saunton Sands Longboard Classic this weekend. The first stop of the 2018 tour kicked off at the North Devon primo longboard wave and in a nutshell – Saunton delivered. Really delivered. The standard of competition was high and the 3-5ft clean surf provided the perfect canvas for Britain’s top longboarders.
Elliot Dudley from Wales, having returned to competition after winning the Welsh title the week before, was quick to set his stall out and with his traditional logging approach posted some high scores. Local lad, Jack Unsworth, also favouring a traditional approach was keen to show why he qualified for the 2018 WSL World Longboard Tour posting two 10s to score a perfect combined heat score of 20 in the Single Fin semi final. However it was Elliot that took the win in the final with Jack in second.
Elliot also dominated the Men’s Open despite a valiant effort from Ben Howey in the final who posted a 10 on one wave, but still fell just short of Elliot’s massive overall score.
Claire Smail returned to her winning ways after a year off, taking the win in the Ladies Division. Her experience at Saunton gave her just too much of an edge against the other finalists, despite Jen Pen and Jenny Briant racking up high scores in earlier rounds.
Barnaby Innes, the 14 year old from Bude, showed that he is going to be one to watch in the future winning both the Cadets U16 and Juniors U18 narrowly squeezing out Newquay gigant-a-grom Jordan Zervas in the final. The predominently right-handed waves at Saunton just seemed to favour Barnaby’s style, which should lead us nicely into the second tour stop at Fistral and Jordan’s home break.
In the Junior Girls U18, the bigger conditions made the paddle out back more of a strength-sapping folly than a winning strategy and Emily Wells played it perfectly, picking off the reforms and putting enough on the scoreboard to seal victory.
The conditions brought out the best in everyone and even the old fellas showed they could still take on some solid waves and long paddles, with Adam Chell and Adam Zervas winning the Masters and Grandmasters respectively. Jason Gray, current Masters Tour Champion, will be looking to redress the balance at Fistral.
A huge thank you to all sponsors of The Saunton Sands Longboard Classic, without you none of this would be possible and we thank you all for your continued support.
Thatch Croyde Saunton Break Cafe Ocean & Earth Europe, O’Neill, Paua Technologies Surfing England
Results:
Men’s Open:
1 Elliot Dudley
2 Ben Howey
3 Jack Unsworth
4 Sam Bleakley
Womens Open:
1 Claire Smail
2 Jenny Briant
3 Jen Pendlebury
4 Rebecca Brown
Grand Masters:
1 Adam Zervas
2 Rich Unsworth
3 Colin Bright
4 Nick Lethbridge
Masters:
1 Adam Chell
2 Jason Gray
3 Colin Bright
4 Tom Gibson
Single Fin:
1 Elliot Dudley
2 Jack Unsworth
3 Lewis Stritch
4 Sam Bleakley
Junior U18:
1 Barnaby Innes
2 Jordan Zervas
3 Jack Gregorius
4 Matt Mitchell
5 Joe Maloney
Cadets U16:
1 Barnaby Innes
2 Matt Mitchell
3 Joe Maloney
Junior Girls U18:
1 Emily Wells
2 Annie Young
3 Stella Briggs
