Torquay Boardriders Club has a great Easter

The Easter period has been a busy and enjoyable time for the Torquay Boardriders Club with Vice President Harry Mann and up and coming gun Xavier Huxtable surfing in the Ripcurl Pro main event, along with several of our fundraisers being run including the Easter raffle and the Lipped Podcast live event.

In small onshore Winkipop conditions, our Vice President Harry Mann was able to notch his first ever Ripcurl Pro berth by taking out the Ripcurl Pro Trials against Barwon Heads native Billy Harrison in a close final. An elated Mann was then seeded in the first round against reigning world champion Gabriel Medina and fellow Australian Ryan Callinan. In a tough heat, Mann managed to get a third place and go into the elimination round against Owen Wright and Jack Freestone. Mann’s forehand looked on point in the first few days of competition as he surfed tremendously. However, unfortunately Mann went down swinging in the elimination round.

After coming second in the Ripcurl team-riders trials behind Jacob Wilcox, it would see Xavier Huxtable narrowly miss surfing in the main event.

However, in a moment of pure joy and excitement, Huxtable received a call the night before the main event stating that a spot had opened up in the draw due to injury, and that he would be in to surf against Brazilian dynamo Filipe Toledo and arguably the greatest of all time Kelly Slater in the first round of seeding. Huxtable looked right at home as he put forward a performance well beyond his years.

Huxtable then drew fellow Australian pair Wade Carmichael and 2019 tour rookie Soli Bailey in the elimination round where he once again showed why he holds such high credentials as one of the country’s, if not the world’s, best junior surfers.

Unfortunately, Huxtable just fell short and his campaign came to an end at the hands of the Australian pair.

The club is extremely proud of both Harry and Xavier for representing the club in fine fashion and we are sure that they will be both be there again in the main event again down the track. Well done.

A massive thank you to everyone who helped out at the Easter Raffle as well as those who bought a ticket in our annual Bells raffle over the 10-day Rip Curl Pro period. We are super grateful for the amazing support that we received over the course of the competition. The raffle was drawn by Rip Curl Pro Women’s Runner-Up Malia Manuel and the winner of the Mick Fanning surfboard was Cam whose entry was @cambrucephotography and the Joel Parkinson surfboard went to Steve, who entered at @jordanryan09.

The Lipped Podcast live event was a massive success with the event being sold out in advance.

Under lights at Ocean Grind, President of the club Cahill Bell-Warren and one of our own in Jimmy Miles, were in great company as we heard the words of Nikki Van Dijk, Crosby Colapinto, Glenn Hall, Matt Wilkinson to speak about their junior careers and the path they have forged to be as successful as they are today. Our very own Harry Mann and Xavier Huxtable were also special guests. All in all it was an epic night where a lot of laughs were had and great insight was given. A big thanks to all the sponsors who supported the event in URBN Surf, Rip Curl, Ocean Grind, and Salt Brewing Co. A big thanks must also go to Johnny Hawken for playing some ripping tunes on the night.

That’s a wrap. Our fourth junior event is on this weekend at Jan Juc so get on down to support the superstars of tomorrow.