Festival double for Brownlie and Culpan

WOMEN’S WINNER: Sasha Brownlie, formerly of Gisborne and Wairoa, won the women’s longboard division of the Duke Festival of Surfing in Christchurch yesterday. www.surferswall.com picture

SURFING

FORMER Gisborne and Wairoa resident Sasha Brownlie and her partner Paul Culpan won the women’s and men’s longboard divisions at the Duke Festival of Surfing in Christchurch yesterday.

Now they are both at the top of the New Zealand Longboard Series rankings.

Last year, Brownlie won the women’s longboard title at the national surfing championships at Gisborne’s Makorori Beach, then represented New Zealand at the ISA World Longboard Surfing Championship in China.

Brownlie and Culpan have hit form at the right time this year.

The Duke Festival of Surfing was the last chance for surfers to impress selectors of the New Zealand team to this year’s world championship, being held in France at the end of May.

The week before the festival, Culpan was fourth in the longboard series rankings but victory in the LoggerHeads Six at Mangawhai Heads showed the type of form he was in. He is now equal with Taranaki surfer Michael Grendon at the top of the rankings.

Brownlie was runner-up in the women’s division of the LoggerHeads Six. She was third in the longboard series rankings going into the Duke Festival at the weekend, but her win yesterday put her clear at the top.

Brownlie, 39, is the daughter of Nick Brownlie, of Ruakituri, and Vicky Hewetson, of Gisborne. She was born in Napier, and went to school at Frasertown, Waerenga o Kuri, Northland and Gisborne (Te Wharau and Lytton High schools).

She was a relative latecomer to surfing, taking up the sport in her 20s after she went into a flat at Piha. She took to surfing with enthusiasm, encouraged and supported by friends, particularly the Culpan family.

In yesterday’s finals, Culpan posted a 14.2-point total to give him a comfortable victory over defending champion Luke O’Neill, who was second on countback from fellow Christchurch surfer Hugh Ritchie . . . both O’Neill and Ritchie scored 10.6 in the final.

Brownlie scored 8.87pts in the final, holding off the challenge of defending champion Estella Hungerford, of Christchurch, who scored a total of 8.1.

Brownlie was runner-up in the women’s logger division to Annelise Coberger, the first person from the Southern Hemisphere to win a medal at the Winter Olympics — silver in the slalom at Albertville in France in 1992.

Brownlie’s points tally in the logger division final was 10.1, against Coberger’s tally of 10.8.

Men’s longboard runner-up O’Neill won the men’s logger division by a comfortable margin.

The three-day Duke Festival of Surfing is held annually at New Brighton to celebrate the sport of surfing.

It was named in memory of renowned Hawaiian waterman and Olympic swimmer Duke Kahanamoku, who popularised the sport of surfing. In 1915 he toured New Zealand, giving surfing and swimming displays at Muriwai on Auckland’s west coast, Lyall Bay in Wellington, and New Brighton beach in Christchurch.