Animal Team riders Elliot Dudley, Zak Lawton and Nicola Bunt cleaned up on the weekend at the British Longboard Union Grand Final winning the Open, Junior and Ladies divisions respectively. In clean, 2 ft waves at Perranporth the trio fought off stiff competition from the cream of British longboard talent to take the prestigious titles.

Cornish local Nicola Bunt from St. Agnes managed to snag the better waves and surfed them to the beach to take out Grace Davies, Candice O’Donnell and Marja van Leeuwen in the ladies final.

Nicola said: “The contest was held in perfect 2ft clean surf! Light glassy off shore winds, with the tide just pushing up off the low tide bank! It was my ideal conditions for longboarding! The sun was shining, the atmosphere was great, it felt like summer was finally here! I am really thrilled to have won this contest with the standard so high and particularly because I am mainly a short boarder and just a part time, just for fun, longboarder!!!”

Zak Lawton demonstrated his smooth style to narrowly edge out Evan Rogers into second with Trev Garland and Callum Clarke taking third and fourth. Zak, who’s been selected to compete for England in the Junior Surfing Championships in Morocco later this year said:

“The surf was fairly good although small it was quite clean. I surfed in the open category to gain experience and got to the quarter finals which I was happy about. In the junior semi final, I felt as though I surfed pretty well, and won that so I was excited for the final. In the final on Sunday, I really wanted to win, but felt that as the waves were not amazing, I hadn’t really shown my best surfing. At the presentation, I was stoked to win!”

The open finalists made the most out of the incoming tide and with 2-3 foot, long peeling lefts the 25-minute final was action packed. Runner up Sam Bleakley started off with a set wave on the hooter, but from then on it was Elliot Dudley’s final. The winning wave, a long left, allowed Elliot to put on a technical display of nose riding and high performance surfing with a gouging backhand snap to finish off.

Elliot said: “I’m so stoked to win the BLU tour for a second time, it’s a great end to the British contest season and I hope it’ll give me the confidence to continue the success in the final events of the European Tour.”

Newquay’s Ben Skinner took third place and Ben Haworth from North Devon came in fourth.

Images courtesy of Ben Howard.