Unfortunately we’ve had to make the tough decision to call the English National Championships off for the weekend 3rd – 5th Oct.
There are many considerations that take place when making an event call, which are never made lightly after weeks of work preparing for a contest. At Surfing England, we pride ourselves on delivering high calibre competitions, we have decades of experience within the team and we’re always looking at how we evolve and develop our events.
We’ve had a few questions and queries come in, much of which has been with constructive and supportive intent, which we genuinely welcome. As such, we want to share the process we went through and provide some FAQ responses.
English National Surfing Championships: making the call
We track wind and swell conditions from two weeks out, with detailed forecast discussion across the decision-making team from 5 days out.
We have to make the final call with 48 hrs notice, this is to allow travelling athletes and staff the time to sort travel and accommodation and for us to confirm the booking of event staff accommodation, catering, hire vans and give notice to our event sponsors (without which we couldn’t run). Our team also has to be on site at least a day before the event to set up the beach infrastructure ready for an early start on comp day.
From 5 days in the forecast storm conditions intensified. We looked at multiple venue options (Fistral, Great Western, Towan, Tolcarne), speaking with beach owners to determine what would be and wouldn’t be possible to facilitate a change of location.
At the point of making the final call on Wednesday 1st October, storm conditions were showing a peak 20 – 25ft swell and winds gusting over 50mph with the direction increasingly tracking from the West to the North West, significantly impacting the viability of the town beaches.
The team who make the call include water safety, contest director, contest organiser and forecasters, with deep local knowledge of the Fistral / town beaches set up. The two key points leading to the event postponement:
- Water safety not comfortable with running in the forecast sea state conditions
- Wind speeds gusting (50mph) in excess of our event infrastructure safety warnings
The event organiser in this instance had no other option but to postpone. We have comprehensive risk assessments for our events, and we cannot run a competition against the advice of our water safety or in wind speeds that exceed the safety thresholds of our event infrastructure. It would put competitors and staff at risk, it could invalidate our insurance and should an accident occur we could be liable with serious repercussions that jeopardise the future of the organisation.
The team recognised there would be periods of contestable conditions in the bay, but not sufficient to run the event (over 22hrs of surfing). Consideration was given to a variety of options including open only, double peak, split locations etc. After weeks of preparation and having already re-scheduled twice, no one wanted a further postponement, but it was the only option given the information available at the time.
In this instance, we recognise the storm conditions have since eased and likely opportunity for contestable surf increased, although potentially dangerous wind speeds remain and a weather warning is in place.
Whether or not you feel the right call was made at the time, we hope this helps people understand the process.
FAQ
We’ve had a few questions related to the call for the nationals and the impact of postponing it.
- Why can’t the call be made the day before, giving more time for weather / wave conditions to firm up? We have a lot of surfers and event team who travel from across the country to participate, alongside event sponsors. A lot of last minute booking by the event team once the call is made – transport, food, accommodation etc. We also have to get our event team to site 24hrs in advance to build the contest area, ready for an early start on competition day.
- Can you not run at a different location? Yes, we can. In the past we have split contests, running at Fistral one day and GW the next. We did look at this option for the nationals, but there was still a limited window of safe, contestable conditions, insufficient to complete the open.
- Can you run at a wave pool if postponed or for the backup? We can’t run last minute at wave pools as they are already booked out with public bookings. We could run the backup at a wave pool if booked sufficiently in advance, but it would be at a considerable cost, approximately 3 – 4 times our existing event budget, which isn’t feasible.
- Can the surfers vote on whether to run or not? We love surfer input, but when it comes to contest safety the ultimate responsibility and liability sit with Surfing England, and the final decision has to be ours. We’re looking at ways to engage more with our competitors for next season.
- Why not have a longer contest window, like the WSL. This is a good question and something we are going to consider further. In the past it’s not been possible with the majority of our competitors also managing jobs / school / education during the week. But as the sport develops and more people are focused on competitive surfing it is something we are going to explore.
GB Cup
The English results would have been used to select the GB Cup team, in accordance with the selection policy for the cup, we will now revert to the 2024 results for the top 4 finishers plus two wildcards.
All surfers involved in the GB cup will be contacted directly.
We fully appreciate the frustration for surfers wanting to secure a place in the team and compete at the GB Cup. This was our third attempt to run the nationals before the cup to give time for selection.
Winning the GB cup is a fantastic achievement but does not give automatic entry to the GB progression programme, representing 1 out of 10 performance criteria. New members must apply and meet at least 3 of the criteria, which are listed within their selection policy.
If you have further questions, please drop us an email: info@surfingengland.org
