By Pte John Wellfare

Pte Mark Ashby, 3RAR, shows the grace and style that won him second place in the short board competition at the NSW Inter-service Surfing Championships.

Photo by AB Helen Frank, NIU-E

ARMY surfers put on a stable performance at the NSW Interservice Surfing Championships in April, only to have victory washed from beneath them by a tough Navy contingent.

Pte Mark Ashby, 3RAR, was the strongest Army contender, taking second place in the shortboard contest, while Pte Tom Bond, also from 3RAR took out third place in the Longboard event.

The competition was fierce, with surfers battling a 1.5 to 2m swell and each other through the 20-minute qualifying rounds, in each of which only two of four surfers could qualify to move into the next round.

Judging was based on a surfer’s best three waves of the round, forcing competitors to compete with the other boarders in the water just to reach the minimum requirement.

In the shortboard final, Pte Ashby came out on top of four-out-of-six finalists in a 25 minute round to take second place, with first going to Smn Jodan Banks from the Navy team.

Navy took the majority of the awards during the two-day event, from “best manoeuvre” to “best wipeout”, while Air Force longboarder Cpl Murray Stabler took out the longboard competition.

Calling all Army surfers

Navy surfer LS Brett Klotz in his element at the NSW Inter-service Surfing Championships.

Photo by LS Bill Louys, NIU-E

By Pte John Wellfare

The first ADF surfing competition has given Defence surfers the justification to take the sport to new heights.

Gaining recognition for surfing as a legitimate sport rather than just a weekend leisure activity has been a tough challenge for Cpl Dan Craig, 3RAR, who put in a lot of the leg work towards getting surfers to represent the Army at the recent NSW Inter-service Surfing Championships.

Difficulties in putting together an Army team for the event, along with the time pressures on high-readiness units, had often come from a belief among some units that surfing wasn't a valid enough sport to justify losing members for competitions.

Cpl Craig said with a little more preparation and a better understanding throughout the Army of surfing's place as a sport, the competition could reach international level.

"This [NSW Inter-service competition] was more like a trial event and basically it went really well," he said.

"I wouldn't mind getting an Army competition going later on this year, so next year we can actually field our strongest team.

"Our aim is to get it Australia-wide. Hopefully we'll run heats in every state to pick state teams and then we'll have an Army contest. "Then we'll go into an ADF contest and pick an ADF team.

Maybe in the future we'll surf against the US, the British [and] the French."

At this stage, Cpl Craig said he's trying to get the Army competition off the ground and hoping to recruit some surfers among the senior ranks to bring some validity to the sport.

"The head RAAF surfer was the equivalent of a colonel [Gp-Capts Richard Owen, William Johnson and Monty Smith].

That's the sort of high ranks we've got to get involved. "All I want is to get out there and highlight it so hopefully it will get bigger and bigger."

For further information, contact Cpl Dan Craig on ((02) 9600 2456.

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