Blue skies, pumping 4 – 5 ft waves and a slight cross shore were the perfect ingredients for the last stop of Surfing England’s 2024 Junior Surf Series.

Originally planned for Porthmeor in collaboration with St Ives Boardriders the JSS team decided on a last minute venue change due to a near maxing out St Ives forecast.

Luckily, Praa was showing a perfect 4ft and with the help of the legends from Bude Waveriders a new event team was assembled and the groms put on notice – competition on!

Each year the standard of surfing grows, and it was noticeable how well all surfers managed the conditions. When you’re ten yrs old, a 4 to 5 ft set wave is solidly over-head, and the crew showed real grit duck diving their way out back and picking off the larger set waves through their heats.

In the under 12 girls the round one stand out was Martha Edwards with a 13.1 heat total, the highest of the day, performing an excellent series of flowing turns in critical sections on her waves. But it wasn’t to be Martha’s event as Mila Barber and Arabella Pere’s progressed through the semis along with Ellie Hickie and Betsie Raey to make the final. In sizeable conditions it was Betsie who made the best wave selections and took the win.

There was some excellent surfing across the u12 boys first round heats with Bobby Wilkinson dropping the highest single wave and heat score thanks to a 6.33 ride. Making it through to the finals Sennen Sykes, Tommy Hamilton and Felix Prisk put in strong performances but it was Cassius Woudberg who walked away with a well deserved competition win.

In the u14 boys the competition was strong and we saw an early interference call (and learning opportunity!) for Wilbur Prisk who still managed to make it through his heat and on to the finals. The stand out on the day was Seb Whiteley who dropped the largest single wave score of the first heat, won the semi’s and went to take the event win in a hotly contested final surfing alongside Wilbur Prisk, Jack Strutt and Jude Beech.

The highest single wave score of the day came in the u14 girls with Coco Arthur dropping a 7.5 on the last wave of her semi final, cementing a place in the finals alongside Josie Hawk, Rosie Sharp and Eva Isserlis. Josie came out the blocks firing with a 7.33 on her first wave which she quickly build on giving her an unassailable lead the competition win.

As ever, the RYD treasure hunt was a real highlight with the chaos beautifully managed by Simon Nichols the UK distributor for RYD and sponsor of the Junior Series alongside Animal UK. RYD and Animal make the junior series possible, so huge thanks to both brands for investing back into the surfing community. Thanks also to St Ives who so nearly hosted this stop and to the Bude Waveriders team who stepped into help make Praa Sands happen. Thank you to all the parents for making the trip and to the groms for being such a great bunch, bringing heaps of enthusiasm and support for each other.

The winners of each JSS stop will now be competing at a Series Final, a day starting with our Team England coaches running a training session before battling under priority for the title of 2024 Junior Surf Series winner!

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