Fun lefthanders greeted competitors on the second day of the Australian Skin Cancer Clinics NSW Longboard Titles at Bonny Hills on Wednesday.
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Kicking off the morning were the requalification rounds for the over-45 and the over-50 men.
Over-45 men’s surfer John Schmidenberg locked in one of the highest heat scores of the event thus far, a 17.84. The Emerald Beach surfer bagged a handful of solid lefts, which included a variety of maneuvers from handstands to barrels. As a result John progressed through to the semi-finals, which will be surfed on Thursday morning.
Check out more Nigel McNeil photos from Day 2
Schmidenberg recently qualified for the Australian Surf Festival with a solid display of shortboard surfing at the Be the Influence Surfmasters at Great Lakes last week.
Blue Bay’s Daniel Bond took a convincing win in the first over-65s men’s final. The talented natural footer threw down an eclectic mix of turns and re-entries to take the lead. Daniel goes into tomorrow’s second final as favourite.
1988 Pipeline Masters Champion and former ISA World Masters competitor, Rob Page showed he was no slouch on a longboard when he dominated his Over-40s Men heat with a combination of speed, power and flow. Robbie managed to snag the highest heat score of the event so far, an 18.30.
“Simply put that’s the best heat I’ve had since 1984,” said Page after his heat. “Three waves – a 9.17, a 7.73 and a 9.13. It’s the best heat I’ve had in 20 years.
“I’ve surfed a lot of big Hawaiian boards in the past, so what I did when I went out there was I grabbed my board and thought I’d attack it a similar fashion and fit the board wherever I could put it in on the wave. After I got my first nine-point ride and I realised there was seven minutes to go, I thought, ‘I want to feel another nine.’ I’ve been watching people like Kelly Slater get nines and I wanted to feel that.”
Live scores for the Australian Skin Cancer Clinics NSW Longboard Titles are available through Surfing NSW’s Facebook page.
The event kicked off at 8am on Thursday with the Over-35 men's first round.