Noble riding high after clinching open crown
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THURSO East’s waves rose to the occasion at the weekend as competitors in the Scottish Surfing Championships hailed it as the best in the 40-year history of the event.
The far north has become the established venue for the national contest since the first one was staged at Bettyhill in 1973.
As Thurso’s Chris Noble reclaimed the open title, local councillors restated their commitment to work to make the area the watersports capital of the UK. A new drive is meanwhile under way to encourage more youngsters in the far north to get involved in the sport with a move to re-activating the Thurso-based surf club.
Prospects for the competition were less than auspicious as a wave of low pressure set in towards the end of last week. That led to organisers opting to base Saturday’s competition at Brims Ness, west of Thurso.
With overnight conditions changing significantly for the better, the premier go-to venue at Thurso East was reinstated. A south-east wind produced a steady, consistent swell with 12- to 15-foot-high barrel waves produced on the reef break.
"It was absolutely epic – just spectacular," said championship veteran Iain Masson, from Fraserburgh.
"I can’t remember a contest when conditions were better for the finals," said Masson, who at 47 was by some margin the oldest competitor in the contest, which attracted 30 surfers, mainly from the far north and north-east.
A seven-time winner of the open title in the 1990s, he rolled back the years in winning through to the semi-finals of this year’s open competition, as well as finishing runner-up in the longboard event. Masson, who works for an engineering company in Peterhead, is a committed fan of the Thurso surf.
"There’s absolutely no question that it’s a world-class venue," he said. "The Surfer magazine listed its top 100 waves in the world, and Thurso was the only one included from the UK.
"It’s also a major plus that there are plenty of other quality venues in the far north and that they are readily available and not crowded, as so many of the other premier surfing spots are."
He believes that an upgrading of the access road and the provision of permanent shelters for spectators are among improvements which would boost the appeal of Thurso East.
William Watson, the newly re-elected president of the Scottish Surfing Federation, spoke of the relief that the pessimistic weather outlook had not been realised.
"It was not looking very positive," the 30-year-old, also from Fraserburgh, acknowledged.
"Had the low pressure tracked 200 miles further south, it would have been a very different story for us. Fortunately we made a call on the back of the expertise we had available and it worked out really well."
Mr Watson described conditions on Saturday at Brims Ness, which featured a ‘dying’ westerly swell, as testing for the competitors.
The weather and tidal conditions came together the following day to produce classic surf breaking off the reef at Thurso East.
"The overhead conditions weren’t great, as we had rain, sleet and snow, as well as a few glimpses of sun, but the waves were just awesome.
"The guys who have been around for a while say that the conditions were the best we’ve had in the history of the competition."
Mr Watson, who presided over the federation’s AGM in Caithness Horizons on Saturday evening, is upbeat about the prospects for the sport.
There are reckoned to be 10,000 surfers in Scotland, of whom he described about 500 as being ‘hard-core’.
He is grateful for the support of Highland Council, which contributed towards the cost of a gazebo-type temporary shelter for the organisers and international panel of six judges.
At the prize-giving in the Tempest café on Sunday afternoon, Mr Watson handed over £200 from the federation to help breathe fresh life into the Caithness Boardriders Club.
Thurso Highland councillor John Rosie said that he and his colleagues will do all they can to promote surfing and other watersports in the town.
As part of their ambitious bid to make Thurso the UK watersports capital, they intend paving the way for a major upgrading of the onshore infrastructure.
This features the building of a new centre at the point of the harbour which would provide showers, toilets and changing and meeting rooms for surfers, canoeists, kayakers, jet-skiers and divers.
Mr Rosie said the need for some form of focal point at the harbour was one of the most popular suggestions made by residents who attended the recent charrette, or town planning consultation, held in Thurso.
As part of its promotional drive, the local authority intends to sponsor a come-and-try weekend for youngsters wishing to have a go at surfing.
His colleague, Donnie Mackay, said that the efforts form part of a bid to regenerate the harbour area and provide a shot-in-the-arm for the local economy.
Mr Rosie presented the open title to Chris Noble, an offshore worker from Thurso. Runner-up was Dunnet’s Chris Clarke, with former champion Ian Cameron, from Fraserburgh, third. The other finalist was Thurso’s Andrew MacLeod, who won the Barron Trophy for the wave of the championships for a 9.5 he scored in a semi-final ride.
Shauna Blackadder made it a Thurso double after winning the women’s title, while another adopted Thursonian, Mark Boyd, won the longboard competition. Jamie Bain, from Fraserburgh, was the junior champion.
Mr Noble, the open champion in 2005, 2007 and 2011, completed a memorable weekend when he took top spot in the senior division. The 37-year-old was delighted with how the weekend competition had gone.
"It’s nice to win, but it was just great to have the conditions we had – Brims was good but on Sunday the waves at Thurso East just got better all day."
Mr Noble is fully behind the move to get Caithness Boardriders back on a sound footing to help encourage more newcomers to take up the sport.
RESULTS were we follows:
Women – 1 Shauna Blackadder, Thurso; 2 Dee Ripoll, Sandend; 3 Megan Mackay, Macduff.
Longboard – 1 Mark Boyd, Thurso; 2 Iain Masson, Fraserburgh; 3 Robbie Mackay, Macduff.
Seniors – 1 Chris Noble, Thurso; 2 Scott Main, Thurso; 3 Ian Cameron, Fraserburgh; 4 Chris Clarke, Thurso.
Men’s open – 1 C. Noble; 2 C. Clarke, Dunnet; 3 I. Cameron; 4 A. MacLeod.
