EP Longboard Trial #3

By Gregg Clarke

7:15 am….Glassy and good 3 ft waves are running down the Cobbles point, some offering 150m rides- this is what greeted us early Saturday morning for the 2nd EPLSA trial. What a banger of a contest we had!!

Unfortunately, due to the amazing turnout, I am unable to mention all the performing surfers, here is a brief summary of the top contenders, the full results can be found on the EPLSA facebook page.

In the open ladies, Hannah Bing cemented her position as top seed with some of the best surfing we’ve seen from the ladies division. Mia Baard was close behind her with old school surfing of the highest degree. I have to mention Britney Linder from the junior ladies who is surfing like a freak at the moment! Hopefully her form carries through to the SA champs in May.

The junior division (u18), was dominated by Peter Coffey who impressed the judges with a critical mix of new school and old school surfing. Peter is definitely a contender for the SA junior title. The SA champs u16 boys title, is also definitely up for grabs if Alex van Rijswick can surf like he surfed on Saturday. He posted the highest heat score of the day and won in convincing fashion.

The ballies divisions saw incredible displays of power and style from the likes of Alan Byram, Craig Cuff (junior ballies), Drew Macdonald (out of retirement) and John Macleod who won their respective divisions.

The opens mens division to date, has been dominated by logger Dean Simpson who has somehow managed to give all the high performance longboarders carrots in this seasons trials! Someone please drive over his board…..Just when all the EP open surfers thought they could relax a little with Dylan Macleod in Australia, his younger brother comes in out of no where, to steal 2nd place!! Mathew Macleod surfed like a freak- and got a very close 2nd to Dean. Matt also won the senior mens division, this oke is gonna course upsets at his first SA champs, that’s for sure! It’s a good thing I’ve also ordered 2 new Greg Smith longboards…..Greg, its fair to say Matt’s board goes!!! I got a 3rd and Galad Smith is cementing his place in the open division with a 4th place.

See ya at the next trial!

Gregg Clarke


Results below - is under column Trail #2 just to confuse you!