Longboarding festival a blast from the past
The sun, the surf, the long blond hair – it’ll all be on show in Sumner during a unique, slowpaced festival.
The Single Fin Mingle, now in its fourth year, kicks off on Friday. It is a three-day celebration of oldschool longboarding, music, art and surf culture.
Organiser Ambrose McNeill said the festival was inspired by NZ’s lack of longboarding contests and ‘‘these really groovy events happening in Australia’’.
‘‘We started to plan houses and flights to go to Aussie, but we thought, bugger it, we’ve got all these beautiful resources in Sumner … we should just put it together ourselves,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s all about putting on the best event we could for the surfers.’’
The contest is invitation only, but spectators are encouraged to flock to Scarborough Beach from 7.30am tomorrow and on Sunday to catch some of the world’s best longboard surfers.
A film screening at Hollywood Cinema tonight is open to the public, as are events tomorrow, including an art exhibition from Kiwi artist Paul McNeil at LEstrange Gallery, and a party at the Sumner Community Centre.
McNeill, born and raised in Sumner, said he was ‘‘stoked’’ to bring both local and international longboarders to his patch.
‘‘We know the guys who run the local bars and restaurants, the movie theatre where I actually worked when I was younger and there is a really nice longboarding community here,’’ he said.
McNeill said their first event featured about three international riders. This year they were expecting at least 30 from Australia, Portugal, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Different from its shorterboarded cousin, with its bigger waves and aggressive turns, longboarding represents a smoother, graceful way to ride waves. Longboards are generally more than 2.74 metres long and weigh at least 8 kilograms. McNeill said riding them was ‘‘about style and finesse’’.
‘‘They are quite tricky to manoeuvre, so you have to walk up and down the board to do that, it comes with its own stance and there is a grace and style involved with it. It’s an amazing feeling, probably the closest you could get to walking on water.’’
The tight-knit community provided an ideal backdrop for an intimate festival, McNeill said, as did the expected autumn swell sets.
‘‘It’s definitely not the waves that make the Single Fin Mingle stand out. There are plenty of better waves in NZ, but it is a really fun, rolling beach break that is suited to longboards.
‘‘The wave is quite slow, so a bigger board with more foam in it floats and glides across the top of the water more easily.’’
"It's all about putting on the best event we could for the surfers."
Ambrose McNeill