No stopping iLembe surf aces

The North Coast’s junior surfing contingent continues to make iLembe proud on the national stage.

At the Sea Harvest Nahoon Open in East London earlier this month, Nathan Tayler took home gold in the U14 boys event, while Levi Vosloo grabbed first position in the U12 boys event.

The Nahoon Open was the most recent event on the South African Junior Surf Tour (SAST) which has made five stops across the country to date.

After starting the series with 7th, 3rd and 4th placed finishes, Tayler has found form to win the last two events back-to-back.

And until the final he was never really threatened, surfing with a newfound confidence to ease through his quarter- and semi-final heats in excellent three foot East London surf.

He would better his overall scoring at each stage of the competition, timing his big waves to perfection.

This was most evident in the semi-final where he was in third position before delivering a 6.0 and 6.83 on his final two waves to cruise through in first.

There was no such trouble in the final however, where Tayler’s calm and consistent scoring proved too much for the chasing pack.

His consecutive event wins have propelled him up the overall SAST leader board and he is now in second place in the U14 boys category behind Cape Town’s Ben Esterhuyse.

Tayler also ‘surfed up’ in the event, competing above his age group in the U16 boys category where he would earn a fantastic fourth place.

In just his second SAST event, Levi Vosloo claimed his first win in the U12 boys section.

Far from being overawed by the competition, Vosloo came out the blocks firing to score a massive 15.83 in his opening semi-final.

That proved to be the perfect confidence builder for the final, in which he blew away the competition by more than four points to finish on 13.50.

It was almost an all-iLembe final, with Sean Tayler finishing second and previously unbeaten Marcello Zedde taking fourth.

There was no friendly fire issues for Vosloo however, and any combination of his four wave scores in the final would have been enough to earn him the win.

Zedde remains atop the overall leader board with four wins out of five, followed closely by Tayler.

Vosloo vaulted from 17th to ninth by way of his win and will surely be eying the upcoming events for further hauls.

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