Surfing to reach the stars
The Jordy Smith Inter-Club Tag-Team Challenge was a surfing contest put together by Nicolette Tilley and Alvin Mtatshi, an inspirational individual from Sisonke Surf Club.
A team of surfers from Umzumbe secured fourth place in the Jordy Smith Inter-Club Tag-
Team Challenge held at Bay of Plenty in Durban last Saturday.
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The event also raised enough money for four development surfers, Simo Mkhize (Umzumbe), Ayanda Mpisane (Trafalgar Saints), Lwando Dlezi (Trafalgar Saints) and Senzo Shange (Trafalgar Surf Club) to go to the South African championships.
Nicolette Tilley, event organiser of Saturday’s surf contest, said this initiative was inspired by meeting Simo and seeing him surf in Umzumbe.
“I could see that he was incredibly talented. After forming a friendship with Simo and Zamani Gcwense I started taking the Umzumbe Development team through to their Ugu trials,” she said.
Nicolette said that after four development surfers from Trafalgar and Umzumbe made the team to represent Ugu District at the South African Championships 2018, they realised that it was simply not possible for these surfers to raise the costs and that they needed to help to raise funds for them to take part.
“I reached out to friends, family, sponsors and the professional surfing industry in order to raise enough money. The Umzumbe community and my friends have been incredibly generous. The money that I have raised has ensured that Simo, Ayanda, Lwando and Senzo get the opportunity to compete.
The Jordy Smith Inter-Club Tag-Team Challenge was a surfing contest that Nicolette and Alvin Mtatshi, an inspirational individual from Sisonke Surf Club, put together with the help of equipment kindly loaned to them by Ugu Surfriders to aid them in the fund-raising.
“Sisonke Surf Club is doing incredible work empowering development surfers along the coastline of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). Alvin has worked with some of the Trafalgar Saints and Umzumbe boys for many years in mentoring and coaching them.”
The surfing contest was also aimed to bring back the friendly competitiveness between all the KZN clubs and required teams to have four men and a woman.
South Shore from Southbroom entered two teams: they had local surfers Heather Clark, who has numerous titles under her belt as their woman surfer and Kirra Attfield was the woman surfer for the Trafalgar Saints Team.
The youngest woman surfer was Louise Lupront who braved the backline at the young age of nine alongside some of South Africa’s best surfers and legends like Paul Canning.
There were 11 teams in total and many of them were children under 12 years. This type of event allowed families to compete together, as there were no age limits.
Graham Smith sponsored funds towards the running costs of the event.
Surfing South Africa generously sponsored R2 500 to the Rising Stars Award for the best development team, which was split between the Umzumbe and Sisonke Club as both surfed at an equally incredible level.
Anne Wright was the contest director, overseeing all the finer details and ensuring the schedule and heats ran according to plan. Wild and Free sponsored the main prize of R5 000, which went to the surfers of North Swell Surf Club.
“It has been a heart-warming journey so far, working with these young men who overcome obstacles on a daily basis to live out their passion for surfing,” said Nicolette.
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