Adaptive Surfing Open

Adaptive Surfing Open

Sunshine and waves were on tap at the concrete shores of The Wave, Bristol, yesterday at the 2021 dryrobe English Adaptive Surfing Open. An incredible day for all who joined us, the champions of the contest have been crowned, and we welcome 14 newly frothing adaptive surfers into our community after the launch of a Waikiki wave participation session. Our ambitions are to see adaptive surfing become a Paralympic sport and events such as this drive this movement one step closer. Here’s how the day unfolded…

The atmosphere was full of anticipation and excitement yesterday ahead of the start of the contest heats. The surfers came together, and friendly rivalries were reignited as the wave machine came to life and the first waves rolled through. Heats lasted for 6 sets of waves, all rides scored, and the top wave from the left and right side combined to give final positioning at the end of the contest.

Setting the day off, the Assisted Division sparked the interest of the crowds. Mark Hagger, competing with Surfing England for the first time excelled with a wave score of 7.17, and he took champion title. Battling for the other top spots and in very close scores were Jay Friedlander, Mark Bowra and Tash Davies.

In the standing crisp turns were completed, riding in the pocket, and many charging to get into those cheeky barrel sections that pop up on the advanced wave. Israeli surfers Nachman Balulu and Adi Klang added an international flavour to this division and put some impressive surfing and scores on the table, alongside our home English and Welsh surfers.

A standout moment, Llywelyn ‘Sponge’ Williams set the sitting/kneel division off with a banging 360 on the wave. A regular at The Wave, Martin Pollock’s training clearly showed as he chased Sponge very closely on the heat on the left.

The Men’s and Women’s Open Divisions are a real highlight and unique aspect to our English event. These heats see competitors come together for an all-out battle to claim champion spots from cross divisions. These heats are always serious crowd pleasers and are epic to watch, whilst scores drop live as the judges decipher exactly what the board and riders are doing to maximise points.

It was great to see Go Pro supporting the contest with an award for the Hero Moment, awarded to David Lewis, a Visually Impaired athlete with a belter of a wave that he rode all the way to the bay.

A key part of driving forward adaptive surfing in England is opening up the participation pathways. We actively made a move to address this with the introduction of a Waikiki participation session and welcomed 14 surfers to The Wave, for many their first-time surfing. The progression from some of the new surfers within the hour session was phenomenal – riding waves all the way into the bay. Those with experience were straight too it cruising on the glassy lake waves – the pier and lake were alive with everyone hollering encouragement and the raw emotion as surfing yet again is in action transforming people’s lives.

Mark Bowra from The Bowra Foundation went above and beyond to support this Waikiki session with two awards for Most Determined Surfer (one on each side of the lake). Congratulations to Ayla Halewood and Danny Teare who won these and scored themselves a voucher for another surf at The Wave.

Catching up with Nick Hounsfield, Founder of The Wave and Chair of Surfing England, Nick says “Yesterday was the ‘Day of Days’! After a rollercoaster year it was incredible to see friends, athletes, volunteers, partners and sponsors all come together to create an event that epitomises “why we do, what we do”. Seeing the athletes step up another level from last year, combined with hosting the Waikiki taster session to help grow the sport, was the perfect combination of performance and purpose. The future for adaptive surfing as a sport is incredibly bright and there is a real groundswell of support behind building our healthy surfing community!”

During the event, Nick jumped in the water to support the delivery of the Waikiki session, alongside Ben Powis, CEO, of Surfing England who states “The English adaptive surfing movement is gaining real momentum. We have some of the best athletes in the world, amazing support crew and events like this to showcase the sport and to feed into the work happening internationally to see adaptive surfing recognised as Paralympic sport.”

An absolute standout mention to all the volunteers who attended and make events such as this possible. We are truly honoured to have this support in the wider surfing community. A massive thank you to all the crew who joined us and put in hours of lake time, lots of swimming, some epic bodysurfing, and to the land crew too.

Our further thanks to the team at Surfability UK CIC who have supported the event since its inauguration 5 years ago and bring a wealth of knowledge to the contest. Also, to The Wave Project, as many of their team of volunteers joined the day including Ian Bennett, Adaptive Lead at Wave Project.

A huge thank you to Matt Harwood, Team England Adaptive Coach, for many hours of support in the run up to the contest and who charged all Wednesday and Thursday to support the delivery of the contest.

This event was truly an exceptional event, as the contest continues to go from strength to strength. A resounding success and fantastic day that was thoroughly enjoyed by all. The stoke levels were radiating at The Wave from everyone onsite, amplified by the presence of headline partners dryrobe. We cannot wait to see what the rest of 2021 brings for adaptive surfing, as we look to the Paralympics, to 2022, and beyond.

A huge thank you to Matt Harwood, Team England Adaptive Coach, for many hours of support in the run up to the contest and who charged all Wednesday and Thursday to support the delivery of the contest.

This event was truly an exceptional event, as the contest continues to go from strength to strength. A resounding success and fantastic day that was thoroughly enjoyed by all. The stoke levels were radiating at The Wave from everyone onsite, amplified by the presence of headline partners dryrobe. We cannot wait to see what the rest of 2021 brings for adaptive surfing, as we look to the Paralympics, to 2022, and beyond.

Full Results:

Men’s Open

1 Adi Klang
2 Llywelyn ‘Sponge’ Williams
3 Pegleg Bennett
4 Martin Pollock

Women’s Open
1 Charlotte Banfield
2 Natasha Davies
3 Juliette Friedlander
4 Katie Richards

Assisted
1 Mark Hagger
2 Juliette Friedlander
3 Mark Bowra
4 Natasha Davies

Sitting/Kneeling
1 Llywelyn ‘Sponge’ Williams
2 Martin Pollock
3 Isaac Heaher

Standing
1 Adi Klang
2 Nachman Yariv Balaulu
3 Pegleg Bennett
4 Louis Sutton

Jersey Juice

Jersey Juice

Safe to say that Hurricane Elsa brought some of the gnarliest and bombing surf I’ve ever seen in New Jersey! Who would have thought that we had firing outer reef breaks here. Thank the heavens that I purchased this jet ski for surfing conditions like these. Full blown dream come true!

Cooking Keramas.

Cooking Keramas.

It was already a great morning at Keramas (see below), but as the tide started filling in, so did the swell. No mad edit, banging tunes, just threading kegs, Keramas. I could watch this all day long…

Southern Water Slammed with Record £90 Million Fine for Sewage Pollution

Southern Water Slammed with Record £90 Million Fine for Sewage Pollution

Southern Water have been fined a record £90 million million for illegally dumping raw sewage into the sea across the south coast.

The company wilfully discharged untreated sewage 7,000 times between 2010- 2015, equating to a massive 61,700 hours of pollution impacting sensitive coastal habitats and popular recreational areas.

Southern Water pleaded guilty to 51 counts of knowingly discharging sewage into the sea.

The case brought to light shocking new evidence of their deceit and illegal activity in their attempt to maximise profits.

In the biggest ever investigation undertaken by the Environment Agency (EA), it was revealed in court this week that Southern Water locked evidence in cupboards and removed key documents from investigators in an attempt to undermine investigations.

Attempts were also made to prevent EA staff from entering treatment facilities in a blatant move to hide illegal activities.

Treatment works were being deliberately run at less than half their capacity with treatment tanks kept full allowing them to turn septic, releasing a highly toxic soup of sewage and rain water straight into the sea.

In one wastewater treatment facility, sheets of boards had even been put into the system to stop sewage water entering into the treatment plant and instead diverted to a storm tank and then dumped straight into the environment.

We heard how these discharges were highly likely to have been the reason for contaminated shellfish having been discovered along the south coast which risked causing norovirus to consumers – this is a virus than can be fatal.

The evidence gathered during the investigation showed that this was not the work of a few rogue employees but points towards an institutionalised culture of deceit with instructions and co-ordination coming from the very top of the Southern Water chain of command, including senior lawyers.

And all the while Southern Water customers have been paying escalating bills as the company amassed eye watering sums of profits. Over £200m in profits were made by the company in each of the last 3 years. And, it gets worse! Profits are simply hidden offshore. Southern Water’s Jersey based owners Greensands Holdings, controlled from the Caymans, only payed £100,000 corporation tax on £103m profits. Yes, our jaws dropped even further at that too!

Hugo Tagholm, CEO of Surfers Against Sewage says:

It’s absolutely scandalous that Southern Water dumped raw sewage in the sea for so long, hiding their tracks as they went so they could increase their profits. This shocking, criminal capitalism is one of the worst cases of companies wilfully putting profits before the health of people or planet.

Worse still is that water companies, including Southern Water, seem to continue dumping raw sewage into fragile, precious and finite blue habitats, with over 400,000 separate raw sewage pollution events pinned to their collective reputation in 2020 alone. All whilst their CEOs walk away with huge pay packets and dividends.

They are simply not doing a good enough job. The water industry needs to clean up its act and be held to account.

This isn’t the first time that Southern Water have been caught out. In 2019, it was ordered to pay a penalty of £126m back to customers by the price regulator Ofwat for deliberately misreporting its performance, serious failures at sewage treatment sites, and for failing to invest in equipment resulting in discharges of waste water into the environment. And last year we reporting in our Water Quality Report how Southern Water had failed to provide sewage discharge notifications through the Safer Seas & Rivers Service, putting 1,000’s of people at risk of surfing, swimming, kayaking and playing in potentially unsafe waters.

And this won’t be the end of this story. Investigations are still underway for instances occurring after 2015. This week’s case highlights the extent to which corporate greed continues to take precedent over human and environmental health. Water companies simply can’t be allowed to get away with this any longer. It’s time to End Sewage Pollution for good.

Pumping Kirra

Pumping Kirra

It’s been a crazy run of swell at Kirra recently. If it wasn’t a double or triple barrel it probably didn’t make the cut. Pull in and witness the sickness.

What’s New

What’s New

What’s New, a video featuring Woody and Huck New filmed from the start of 2021 and throughout local restrictions. I’m happy to finally get the footage out for everyone else to see.

Video Rob Blackett

Additional surfers –
Seb Smart
Isaac Marshall
Toby Pearce
George Carpenter

Thanks to Hugh at BOS Surfboards and O’Neill and Volcom for supporting the guys.