Last Sunday saw the invasion of Porthmeor beach by teams of costumed surfers on foamies for the inaugural Swellboard Shootout. The event runs much like a normal surf comp, but with less emphasis on performance surfing and more on fancy dress, sabotage and debauchery. As well as displays of great surfing prowess, once up and riding many of the teams exhibited acting talent that would rival that of any small time amateur dramatics society. Here a surfer from the the team ‘The Emmets’ tries to defend herself and her ice cream from a savage seagull attack.
And here ‘The Toy Soliders’, winners of the best costume, stage a dramatic war-time tableux.
The sun blazed all day and some competitors seemed keen to show as much skin as possible. Members of both the Doctors Orders and Surf Against Sewage began jubilantly stripping off as soon as they got up on a wave, revealing nothing but a pair of speedos to a large crowd of excitable onlookers.
In the end the ‘Minions’, a team of local groms, took the win, with their light footedness, streamline bathing caps and lack of gin consumed prior to the final, giving them the edge over their fellow competitors. After the event everyone headed for the Balcony bar on the harbour for the prize giving where the Minions accepted their trophy graciously to raucous applause from the rest of the field.
Seemingly only at The Summer Shootout can participants spend their heats spearing fellow competitors off their boards and still get a round of applause off them at the end of the day- and if that doesn’t entice you to come next year I don’t know what will.
