Surfest 2024

On Thursday 14 and Friday 15 of March, Newcastle High School entered a number of girls and boys teams in The Mutual Bank High School Teams Challenge.  This is part of Surfest’s festival of surfing, which is the largest surfing event in the southern hemisphere. There were 60 teams competing in the boys division and 16 in the girls.

The contest is tag team format and requires a team of three surfers to catch two scoring waves each, within a 20-minute heat. Only one surfer from each team can be in the water at any one time and bonus points are awarded if all three surfers complete their waves and are out of the water before the end of the heat. 

Thursday was round one at South Bar Beach. A beautiful day with amazing surfing conditions. Our teams performed admirably with some solid surfing on display. The number one boys team finished in 14^th position and our only girls team finished in third.

Due to adverse surfing conditions at Bar Beach on Friday, the event was moved to Nobbys for Round two in very challenging and testing conditions. Ace along with Kade and Jye, performed magnificently, achieving the second highest heat score of the event. They managed to qualify for the final by just 1/10^th of a point, and placed third overall. The girls were outclassed in their round 2 heat and missed out on getting through to the finals.

The High School Teams Challenge is a fantastic community event, promoting a healthy lifestyle and providing our students with the opportunity to surf in a world class contest against some of the best junior surfers in the state. Our students love it!

We thank The Mutual Bank and Warren Smith for inviting us to the event and we look forward to competing again next year.

Congratulations to all our team members for putting in a tremendous performance and representing Newcastle High School in such a positive and responsible manner. We are extremely proud of you.

Results:

- Boys                                                                                                                                                   

1^st Newcastle Grammar 1                                                                                                                                

2^nd St Francis Xavier A                                                                                                                                        

3^rd Newcastle High 1

4^th Swansea High A

- Girls

1^st Swansea High

Mr Steve Prior - Teacher