When it comes to school surfing in Barbados, St. Winifred’s are proving to be truly unstoppable.
The Pine Hill, St. Michael school is closing in on a decade of domination of the NKM Inter-School Surfing Championships.
Last weekend, the boys and girls in green tucked title Number Seven under their belts as the Barbados Surfing Association (BSA) held its Scholastics at Drill Hall.
The only other school to win the inter-school championships was the Lodge School, in 2004.
Despite very challenging conditions and in very small surf, the St. Winifred athletes used their numbers to trounce their nearest rival, Providence School, by almost 15 000 points.
Led by double winner Dane Mackie, the St. Winifred’s School amassed 17 040 points to second place Providence’s 2 678. The St. Gabriel’s School was third with 2 365 points.
In some cases, there were finals where all four surfers represented the St. Winifred’s school, underlining the dominance of that institution in local surfing.
For the younger surfers, vigourous paddle battles were the order of the day, but in many instances, the contenders were forced to let the waves go by after they realised they were not forming up ideally.
Wave selection, in the end, became critical, with the more experienced surfers like Mackie, Chelsea Roett, Che Allan and Zander Venezia benefiting from their knowledge, especially on a day when the waves allowed only two good manoeuvres at the most. (HLE)
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