New Zealand Schools Surfing Festival

Taylor May, Ben Holmes-Young, Marcus Magill, Ocean Michael and Harvey Brown recently represented WSCW at the inaugural NZ Schools Surfing Festival held at Muriwai on the 19th and 20th March.

Although the students hadn’t had a lot of previous competition experience, they had some impressive successes when pitched against some of the best surfing schools from around the country. They came 3rd in their heat which qualified them for the plate semifinal. The team was neck and neck with Green Bay High School throughout the whole plate semi final, but just managed to stay ahead of them and Papamoa College at the end of the heat, finishing in second place and taking them through to the plate final.

Team captain Taylor May put it best: ‘Making it to the plate finals was a win for us, and we treated it like we had just won the whole competition.’ Although they placed 4th in the plate final, there were some significant achievements across the two days other than making it to the plate final itself. Ben Holmes-Young achieved the highest wave score out of everyone in the team across the three heats, and the team won the prize for best team spirit. Also, a huge thank you is owed to Taylor May for initiating the school’s entry into this competition, and the support from parents Janet Brown and Lis