Clean sweep for North Shore Surf Club in Scottish national championships
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Local champion Phoebe Strachan highlighted the ever-improving standard of women's surfing after she continued her domination in the Scottish national championships.
Strachan took the women’s open title for the third time in a row, and for the fourth time in all, as part of a clean sweep for Thurso-based North Shore Surf Club (NSSC) across six categories at the weekend.
The Scottish Surfing Federation event was held at Brims Ness in excellent conditions.
There was a double success for Craig McLachlan as he triumphed in the men's open and junior boys.
Mark Boyd won the masters title for the second year running, while Chris Clarke came out on top in the longboard category and Olivia Mackay was champion in the junior girls' contest as well as finishing third in the women’s open.
Strachan is a coach at NSSC along with Clarke and Boyd.
She said: "The conditions were really good, especially on Saturday. Friday was a bit ragged but Saturday was properly pumping – you literally couldn't get better waves for a surfing club test. We were lucky.
"The level of women's surfing is massively improving at a rate of knots and the competitions are getting tougher.
"It's really good to see so many young ones entering the women's competitions – they're going to be the ones to beat in the next few years. Hopefully I've got a few more years in me.
"You never take it for granted. I've worked really hard and trained hard for this.
"I'm just delighted that it has been a success again and all the hard work has paid off."
Craig McLachlan, then 16, became the youngest surfer to win the Scottish men's open title when the championships were held at Thurso East in November 2021. Now in his last year as a junior, he was thrilled to regain the open crown at the weekend as well as taking the junior boys' category.
"On Friday the waves were really quite tricky, but when we arrived on Saturday and I first saw the waves I was just getting so excited because they were just so fun," he said.
"I felt that throughout the competition I managed to get in a nice rhythm, which is really cool. I felt like I was surfing my best and I got some really fun waves."
The event marked the 50th anniversary of the Scottish National Surfing Championships, having first been held in 1973 on the north coast. It was supported by EventScotland’s National Events Programme.
Results – Junior girls: 1 Olivia Mackay; 2 Robyn Larg; 3 Lola Mitchell; 4 Natalie Kobedza.
Junior boys: 1 Craig McLachlan; 2 Finn Clark; 3 Charlie Pugh; 4 Ben Kobedza.
Longboard: 1 Chris Clarke; 2 Sam Christopherson; 3 Ruairidh Farquharson; 4 Ross Brown.
Masters: 1 Mark Boyd; 2 Chris Clarke; 3 Mark Cameron; 4 Donald Peace.
Men’s open: 1 Craig McLachlan; 2 Mark Boyd; 3 Andrew Robertson; 4 Mark Cameron.
Women’s open: 1 Phoebe Strachan; 2 Clover Christopherson; 3 Olivia Mackay; 4 Lola Mitchell.
