Hawaiians dominate in Noosa

THE world’s best longboarders have surfed the popular annual Noosa Longboard Festival — a WSL World Championship-rated longboard event.

Hawaiians dominated the longboards, with legend Joel Tudor winning the men’s event and newcomer Kelis Kaleopaa taking out the women’s.

While these traditional longboards are not surfed in high-performance speed mode like shortboards, longboarding remains a significant component of surfing.

There’s a popular theory that if you added up the numbers globally of longboarders, they may outnumber shortboarders.

The field that lined up in Noosa was the best of the best and I still find it incredible to watch them.

The moves are entirely different to shortboarding, with a huge emphasis on style and flow and how surfers walk up and down the board, with the ultimate move being to hang 10. Hanging 10 on a longboard is probably the equivalent to getting deeply barrelled on a shortboard.

The boards are placed in the wave’s most critical sections and the skill required to maintain and successfully execute each move is high-end across both disciplines.

Noosa’s pointbreaks, when they occasionally work, attract thousands of longboarders riding the perfect peeling righthanders and it is regarded as the most perfect longboard location in the world.

Unfortunately, this year the points failed to deliver waves, but the event still scored super fun beachbreaks.

The days ahead are looking good, with a return to winterlike conditions and westerly winds. Very good waves on the reefs today and swells should maintain into the weekend.