Hungerford takes double at Canterbury Womens Surf Champs

This is the whakataukī we opened the Benchmark Homes Canterbury Women’s Surf Champs 2024 with… hosted by Southern Wāhine, at Scarborough Beach on Saturday 13th April. A whakataukī that can be used to apply all of your wave knowledge and apply wisdom… And what a fine display of the wāhine surfing it was!

After having to postpone the event in early March due to lack of surf, the wāhine were gifted a day of pumping waves and off shore winds. The girls were able to display their surfing expertise all day, to hundreds of spectators lining the beach.

As a Surfing NZ 1000 rated event, points were gained for the competitors in the Open Women’s, Open Women’s Longboard and Grom divisions.

Estella Hungerford (North Wai) comfortably claimed the Open Women’s Title and narrowly took the win in the Open Women’s Longboard, closely followed by Lucy Johnson in second. Estella also claimed the Surfing NZ prize of the highest heat score, scoring a massive 9.67 in Open Womens final.

In the junior divisions we saw Lenka Cargill just taking the win in the U18 over Lucy Macefield. Georgie Macefield took out the U16 girls, U14 was Indie Giles, and in the Teeny Wāhine U12 event was Layla Duke (who could also be awarded the best speech at prizegiving, setting an amazing example for all those who came up after her!)

In the Senior Longboard Annelise Coberger took a comfortable win, whilst Heidi Tirikatene-Nash from Gore Bay took out the Senior Womens Shortboard division.

The Benchmark Homes Canterbury Womens Surf Champs 2024 was an awesome event. Great waves, great surfing and a lot of aroha shared both in and out of the water. We would like to thank our new principal sponsor Benchmark Homes for coming on board this year, we are so grateful for your support.

Thank you also to our other generous sponsors:

Seventhwave Wetsuits @engco Belen Rada Frame n Copy – design, print & picture framing Supacolour Sticky Johnson Surf Wax Stoked Surf School Sumner Little Fale Sadhana Surf and House of Creativity North Beach Coffee Shed Offcut Hair and Sea Hairdressers Artby.kylak and the help from SISA-South Island Surfing Association and Surfing New Zealand Inc Cheeky Kea Tours.

Thank you for those who gave their time to help organise the competition, we really appreciated your mahi and couldn’t do it without you.

Thank you to Aidan and his team of judges – working hard all day!

Thank you to all those that came and watched, cheered, supported and encouraged all our wāhine, such an important role in making this event so awesome! And finally to our surfing wāhine.. you are all amazing. Thank you for coming back year after year to tautoko this competiton.We love having you there, we love your smiling faces, the joy you bring to the water and the awesome surfing you display! Kia kaha wāhine mā! See you all next year!