Lloyd Cole blasting his way to Victory in the Welsh Open 2005

The contest – held at Freshwater West, Pembrokeshire – started on Saturday (May 28th) with 3/4 foot surf ,in what turned out to be the best conditions of the weekend. Over a hundred and twenty competitors battled it out for 14 national titles. The open division made the most of the clean high tide waves with stand out performances from Lloyd Cole, Isaac Kibblewhite and Sam Burkett. On Sunday the swell had dropped slightly and we concentrated on the other categories finishing once more with the Open semi finals where Lloyd Cole’s huge air won him Cobian’s £200 best manoeuvre prize. Nick Reid also put in a big performance in his semi to secure his final place alongside Isaac Kibblewhite and Mark Vaughan (who only returned to the water last weekend after an eight month break due to a knee injury).

All the finals were held in difficult 4 foot conditions due to strong southerly winds. Apart from the Open the result of the day must have been 13 year old Gwen Spurlock who not only took the Youth (Under 14) title from the boys she also won the Womens surfing event – that’s a girl with a bright future. Glenn Welsh (Llantwit) took the Cadets, Beth Mason (Swansea) added the Girls (under 18)to her list of results, Dan Harris (Aberavon) retained his Longboard title while Craig Bright (Llantwit) made sure of the Junior title being off a strong challenge from current champion Harry Cromwell (Pembroke). Simon Blower (Swansea) won the Masters division while Mark Vaughan blasted the Senior final. Once more Gemma Harris is Women’s Bodyboard champion and Mark ‘Splinter’ Griffiths retains the Bodyboard Open title that he has won countless times while Louis Welsh took the Junior trophy.

We would like to thank everyone who judged, beach marshalled, tabulated or helped in any way this weekend – you know who you are and we couldn’t have done it without you!

Special thanks to our sponsors Billabong for their long history of supporting Welsh Surfing and Cobian for the prize money and the prizes along with Snak Attack for feeding everyone over the weekend – cheers for the donation.

Lynda Keward (Contest Director WSF).

All Photos copyright Phil Holden click for information on Prints