Once again the surf gods shined over Coffs Harbour for the inaugural Australian Juniors Waveski Titles and the annual Coffs Harbour Open pilgrammage at Emerald Beach. The event started on Saturday morning with the open event in beautiful sunny 3ft clean conditions for the 30 competitors who travelled to the event. The open and age divisions progressed through the day and then finished off with Juniors division with 6 young contestants in the event. It was fantastic to see the children of waveski surfers Mark Buckey, Col Samways, Bill & Karen Campbell and Rees Duncan who have been in the sport for over 25 years take to the water in the largest juniors division to be held in over 8 years. The older competitors stood by to cheer the kids on and give them support in the surf. The day was finished off with some eskimo roll lessons taken by Larry Adams in the nearby holiday park pool and dinner at the local Moonee Moonee Tavern with presentations for the Juniors division. Ben Buckley won the Juniors division, with Rees Duncan jnr in second place, Daniel Samways in third place, Savannah Campbell in fourth place and our youngest competitors aged 9 years Kye Duncan and Bryce Campbell in fifth and sixth place.

Despite predictions of the surf dropping on the Sunday, it doubled or even tripled in size, leaving limited contestable opportunities at Emerald Beach. So everyone convoyed to one of the many secret Duncan surf spots in the Coffs area and down the dirt track to finish off the open and age divisions for the weekend in challenging conditions. The Open finalists went home with prize money and each winner took home a nice beach towel.

Everyone had a fantastic weekend in the Coffs Harbour surf and sunshine and all are very excited about the up and coming World Titles to be held there next year. Unfortunately the local World Champ was unable to compete due to other sporting committments and maybe there was a sigh of relief amongst the other open division contestants. However despite his busy schedule, Rees still organised the event and was there all day Saturday looking after things. Thanks have to go to Rees, Trish and Khane Duncan for their help with running the event, Jackie Dillon for her support for the WSA Young Ones program, Wavemaster for donating prizes for the Juniors and B grade divisions, Larry Adams for freezing for an hour in the pool to teach the eskimo roll and everyone for travelling to the event and making it such an enjoyable weekend.

This is the third event of the East Coast Ciruit and all placings will receive points towards an overall point score winner for 2008.

Results

Photos

Check out some photo's of the event courtesy of Steve Farthing. Also Penior Photography has loaded up more photo's of the Juniors and Open event in the new Penior Photo Gallery.

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