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Red Beach Surf Club will play host to the region’s top surf athletes when it stages the 68th Owen Chapman Cup surf carnival on Saturday, 13 January.
The event has always been contested at Red Beach; it was first held in 1957 as a picnic carnival for Auckland’s East Coast surf clubs. The club can lay claim to having the longest-running club day in Australasia for surf lifesavers.
Over the years, the carnival has become a mecca for surf lifesaving competitors, and around 200 are expected to participate in this summer’s event.
Northern Region lifesavers will go head-to-head with their counterparts from the Bay of Plenty and clubs further south.
Only the clubs from the Northern Region are eligible to win the Owen Chapman Cup, which is awarded for most overall points. Red Beach is the defending champion, having won the Cup at last summer’s event. Also up for grabs is the Jubilee Trophy, which any participating club can win. The Mt Maunganui club is the current holder of this trophy.
The carnival caters to the age divisions of U15, U17, U19, and Open. It kicks off at 8.30am with board races, surf races, and ski races. For the U15 athletes, there is a mixed-gender Diamond event. Board, ski, and taplin relays will see teams in action before the beach events of flags, sprints, and relays.
The day’s highlight will be the final event, the Candy Stripes Eliminator, in which contestants compete against the clock in a series of surf competition disciplines. The Eliminator was first held in 2016, and last year’s event drew a record number of entries.
The Owen Chapman carnival ushers in the business end of the surf competition season as surf lifesavers begin the countdown to the Eastern Region, Northern Region, and NZ Championships. Competitors see it as an opportunity to assess their chances of success at those upcoming significant events, and the large numbers competing in the various events make it popular with spectators also.
