The Mollymook Longboarders Charity Classic – 2003

The Mollymook Longboarders Inc 2003 Charity Classic was held over the weekend of the 23-24August with 85 entries in six divisions.

Saturday saw the event kick off at Rennies Beach in clean 3-4ft waves with occasional bigger sets. The peaks provided both lefts and rights, with the better rides being scored on the lefts. With rips on both sides of the surfing area, paddling out was potentially easy; however, those who tried to paddle back out through the white water found the going tough.

The offshore conditions held all day, and the final heat in a full program hit the water at 4:50pm with reduced daylight due to increasing cloud coverage, and was completed as street and house lights came on. This was the first time that Rennies had been used for this event for a number of years, and despite the long stair access to the beach from the car park, most comments about the venue were good.

Conditions on Sunday morning allowed the event to be transferred to the preferred venue of Golf course Reef. The day started with a light NW off-shore wind that gave no clue as to the conditions that would occur later in the day, and variable waves around the 3-4ft size with the normal Golfy left predominant.

As the morning progressed, the wind slowly increased in strength until the NW gale hit at about 11:00am. The gale resulted in a loss of power to large areas of the south coast and caused the highway north of Milton to be closed for some hours. Despite the strength of the wind, there was some protection provided by the Mollymook headland, and the swell managed to continue to push through.

Catching waves out the back became a bit of a lottery depending on the wind gusts, and one wag commented it was a bit like wind surfing without a sail. However, conditions inside remained reasonably clean, and the contest was completed with some excellent performances. Both the Open 9ft semi-finals were worthy of finals in most contests, and the final was a high scoring heat in which the maximum difference between first and sixth on the judges score sheets was 4 points. Making up for his disappointment at the State titles, Narooma surfer Ray Lawrence won the event from Dane Wilson and Brad Whittaker.

Mollymook Longboarders Inc thanks all competitors for supporting the event. The contest format this year was revised to ensure that all surfers got at least two surfs and as a result of the encouraging comments will be continued next year. All proceeds from the event will be donated to locally based charities and to community projects progressively over the coming year.

The event would not have been as successful without the assistance of the DV8 Malibu Club who provided their contest trailer, and in particular without the experience of Steve Vickery who directed the contest in his usual no-nonsense manner and who provided invaluable guidance to Mollymook Longboarders members.

The ladies from the Far West Children’s Scheme provided the excellent food on both days, and Laurie Andrew’s music contributed greatly to the success of the event. The organisers also thank Retro Longboards, Southern Man Surf shop, Island Breeze B&B, O&E, SDS, Balin, Creatures of Leisure, Oceanart, TG Surfboards, Keith Purvis Podiatry, Bewong Roadhouse, Mollymook Golf Club, Mollymook Pharmacy, Deering Street Printers, Hales Douglass Accounting and Financial Services, and Miranda Wines for their sponsorship of the contest. The event will be held in August again next year.

Full results were:

Report by Mike Greentree

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