Progressive surfing wins out at 2023 SUP Surfing Championships

Progressive surfing wins out at 2023 SUP Surfing Championships

For the second year, Surfing England delivered the UK’s only dedicated SUP Surfing championships, open to athletes from across Britain.

A 6-week flat spell for much of the South-West came to an end with a solid 3-4ft groundswell pushing through on the 17^th June, perfectly timed for the 2023 SUP Surfing Championships to kick off at a sunny Fistral Beach.

High performance was the name of the game with the Fistral banks serving up the goods and offering lefts and rights with long ridable walls. The surfers came armed with performance shaped boards committed to delivering a showcase of progressive SUP surfing and they didn’t disappoint.

For those new to SUP surfing, the judging criteria is based on similar premise to open surfing, looking for radical controlled manoeuvres in critical sections of the wave with speed, power, and flow. The big difference for SUP is the use of the paddle as a key tool in performing manoeuvres, giving riders additional leverage in turns, switching sides and generating speed through flat sections.

With stacked Men’s and Women’s divisions the surfing was super close, and it was those able to really leverage use of the paddle and deliver the most critical surfing that progressed.

For the Women, huge congratulations to Holly Bassett who surfed exceptionally all day and walked away as our 2023 SUP Surfing Champion, and to her fellow finalists:

1^st Holly Bassett

2^nd Sarah Perkins

3^rd Annabel Page

4^th Kerry Baker

For the Men, Aaron Rowe riding what looked like an impossibly small board delivered the most progressive and high-performance surfing on the day taking the 2023 SUP Surfing Champion position, with congratulations to all the other finalists:

1^st Arron Rowe

2^nd Ollie Laddiman

3^rd Marcio Dias

4^th William Fairley

Huge thanks to The Stable at Fistral who provided shelter for our judges and some awesome pizza’s to sustain our competition team.  We also wouldn’t be able to run without the support of Surfing England sponsors, with special thanks to dryrobe, Decathlon uk, korev lager and The Caravan and Motorhome club who all do a huge amount to support grass roots surfing.