Newgale, Pembrokeshire, BSUPA National Series 2008 - Round 4 Results

The Newgale BSUPA was held over the weekend of 18th & 19th October in Pembrokeshire. We arrived in dismay to see really small surf with 12 knot onshore winds. The first day distance was held hoping that the surf would improve for the final of the BSUPA series. With around 15 competitors the distance was held in hard onshore conditions and the chop and windblown waves made it difficult for competitors to get into a paddling rhythm. The event was quickly led by Chris “Guts” Griffiths who was keen to make his mark on this event, but on the downwind leg John Hibbard and Mark Slater, who had both extra board speed from catching small waves and paddle fitness and crept ahead of Guts. Alex Murray, who has not raced distance before came in a very credible fourth place ahead of Steve Carter.

The women and juniors did a shorter course which was straight out into the wind and back, this was a hard paddle for them and they performed really well. Claire won the ladies and Wendy, in her first contest, was in second place. In the juniors 13 year old Connor Griffiths was first and 10 year old Holly Bassett came in second. The waves were not good enough in the riders and event directors view to run the main contest, so we decided to run an expression session, in what only can be described as really difficult surf conditions, small windblown waves with a 12 knot onshore wind. The heats were hard to judge so we were judging on a wave claim format, where the rider rode his best wave he would indicate with his paddle and the judges would award points for the one wave only.

The judges were Robin Bramhall, Nick from OnFire and Al from Gower Surf Company.

Saturday night the contestants retired to Mariners Inn, where Big Blue had organised a surf film premier and a band.

Event Director (Simon Bassett) "We knew that Sunday had a bad wind forecast, but we were all really hoping that something was going to change with the forecast. Sunday morning proved us wrong with 25 knots cross onshore, and wind swell. We checked Broad Haven and White Sands as an alternative venue, but both were blown out, so unfortunately at that point we cancelled the event. It was a real shame to cancel the final event in the first series, as we were expecting a real show down between Neal, John and Guts for the overall title. It transpired that the two counting events for the wave series ended up as Gwithians and the Isle of Wight, which put Neal in first and John just behind in second."
Thanks to : Robin Bramhall, Nick, Al, Oli from Big Blue, Chris from the Mariners Inn, Satorial Supplies, SBT Tracker, Jon Parker Photography, Pete Bounds.

Distance Mens

1st John Hibbard
2nd Mark Slater
3rd Chris Griffiths
4th Alex Murray
5th Steve Carter
6th Bill Fitzhugh
7th Matt Argyle
8th Alex Jones
9th Gary Shultz

Distance Women