Honour for SA surfers
Shaun Tomson to unveil plaques at Walk of Fame opening
SOUTH Africa’s first national monument dedicated to celebrating the heritage of surfing will be officially opened next month when surfing legend Shaun Tomson unveils the plaques honouring the first 30 inductees into the Surfers’ Circle Walk of Fame at Muizenberg in Cape Town.
Featuring Pioneers, Legends and World Champions, all of whom contributed to the local growth of the surfing lifestyle and sport prior to 1992, 25 years ago, the monument has been seven years in the making.
Originally mooted by the organisers of the Surfers’ Corner ‘60’s Reunion in 2010, it took four years of relentless effort by Peter Wright, owner of the country’s longest running surf shop, to obtain permission from the local authorities to use the traffic circle at the Corner for the monument.
The project was launched in 2014 when 12 Pioneers (three each from Durban, East London, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town) were selected for their contributions in the 1950s and ‘60s. Since then another seven Pioneers, six Legends and five World Champions have been added and each will have an engraved black marble plaque in their name laid in the walkway on March 19.
Durbanites included in the Pioneers category include George Thompson, George Bell, Leon ‘Dux’ Coetzee, Peter Burness and Baron Stander, while Ant van den Heuvel, Max Wetteland and Graham Hynes are honoured as Legends and Tomson as a World Champion.
Other notable inclusions among the Pioneers are Heather Price, who in 1919 at Muizenberg became the first South African recorded riding a surfboard standing up; John Whitmore, acknowledged as the ‘Doyen’ of SA surfing, and Schani Nagia who became the first chairman of the then national controlling body for surfing, the United Surfing Council of SA, back in 1991.
Cheron Kraak of Jeffreys Bay will be inducted in the Legends category and Ant Brodowicz (1978) of Port Shepstone, East Londoners Wendy Botha (1987) and David Malherbe (1990) and Justin Strong (1991) of Cape Town are among the World Champions.
More on the Surfers’ Circle Walk of Fame can be found at www.thesurferscircle.co.za and on Facebook. BENJI Brand of Cape Town continued his impressive run of results in his adopted home of Hawaii, winning three consecutive heats in the Volcom Pipe Pro before being ousted in 17th place overall.
The World Surf League QS3000 rated event was won by outsider Soli Bailey of Australia in tricky 2-3 metre waves at Pipeline on Thursday.
The only South African in the contest, Brand collected $1 000 (about R13 500) and 600 points for his efforts. That saw the 21-year-old jump 12 places to 24th spot – the highest placed Saffa in the latest rankings.
Meanwhile, in Australia, Matt McGillivray of Jeffreys Bay advanced to the quarter-finals in the 160 man field for the QS1 000 Kommunity Project Great Lakes Pro at Boomerang Beach in New South Wales which will be completed this weekend
See more on the WSL events, including live webcasts, at www.worldsurfleague.com and on the WSL App