Think Mental Health WA School Surfing Titles Report

Recently, a group of our students represented the school at the Think Mental Health WA School Surfing Titles. Here is a report from the day:

A relaxed approach from the surfers and bodyboarders this year. Normally the bus ride into town is filled with predictions on the waves using terminology that is foreign to many outside of the realms of “shredding the gnar.”

The calm and relaxed demeanour shown by these students persisted throughout the morning despite apocalyptic conditions at Back Beach. With 3.5-metre set waves and south-westerly wind gusts of up to 60 kph, the 15-minute heats were a test of both physical and mental fortitude.

Luke got a silky two-turn left and a fast, steep right in his first round of the men's senior surfing against some solid competition. With Cody backing up his scores, they made it through to the next round. However, Luke was to go on alone as Cody regretfully resigned from the competition with an old injury flaring up.

Luke and Ben opened their accounts in the men's bodyboarding with a win. This then created a dilemma for Luke, whose second surfing round ran into the start of his second bodyboard round. Even though his chances of winning the surfing were slim, he decided to go for glory by calling it and running in halfway through his surf heat to begin the bodyboard round.

Going up against the two best surfers alone meant that Luke needed his two best waves to beat their four combined best, and he had only half the heat to do so. With this in mind, he took off on two head-height bombs but was unable to find a clean face, with conditions beginning to take a turn for the worse once again. He ended the heat with a total of 6.5 vs the combined total of the opposition at 14. The pit stop swap to the bodyboard was seamless, with Jacob doing a great job as the caddy. With cramp becoming a limiting factor as well as the time, Luke dug deep to catch two keepers to get OLMC through to the final.

A valiant effort from Ben and Luke to finish as runners-up in the senior bodyboarding.

A great effort by all involved in conditions that would have troubled the world’s best.

Mr Wilson and the PE Department