Whangārei's Ocean Beach Board Riders gearing up for surfing Summer Series

Organisers hope the surf at Ocean Beach, Whangārei Heads, above, will be pumping for the annual Ocean Beach Boardriders Summer Session in January. Photo / File

Surfers from all over Northland will converge on Whangārei's Ocean Beach for an annual surf club competition early next year.

The Ocean Beach Boardriders Summer Session on January 9 will showcase surfers across a range of codes and ages.

Notable surfers set to compete include Paul Moretti, the Northland 25-year-old who won the open men's division at New Plymouth's Backdoor Pro surf competition last year, and Whangarei's Ari D'Anvers, who came second in the under-16 boys division at the National Scholastic Surfing Championships in Kaikōura this October.

All eyes will be on the open division, with its $1000 prize for the top surfer.

Other events will include longboard, women, over 40s, over 60s and junior for under-18s.

The youngsters will also get a chance to participate, with the grom event for under-12s and the mini-grom for under-8s.

Lew Hart, president of the Ocean Beach Boardriders, said if the surf is not good enough the event will be postponed a week to January 16, although he was fairly confident everything would be able to go ahead as planned.

"It's a fairly reliable time of the year," he said.

Other surfers he expected to compete included Northland juniors Cooper Ashill and Izaak Hayes.

The Ocean Beach Boardriders also run club events every third Sunday of the month. The public can join in for $5.

Hart said the club welcomes fresh faces to come along and catch some waves.

"We love that," he said. "It's a bit of fun."

Ocean Beach Surf Guide: (from surf-forecast.com)

Ocean Beach is an exposed beach break that has fairly consistent surf, with offshore winds from the west. It tends to receive distant groundswells and the ideal swell direction is from the east-northeast. The beach breaks offer lefts and rights. Best around mid-tide. It very
rarely gets crowded here.

The best time of year for surfing Ocean Beach with consistent clean waves (rideable swell with light/offshore winds) is during spring and most often the month of December.

Clean, surfable waves are typically found 36 per cent of the time in December while 51 per cent of the time it tends to be blown out. For the remaining 13 per cent of the time it is considered too small by most surfers but may still be OK for beginners and groms at times.