Well not exactly. The Channel Islands, despite only being about 20 yards from France and much further from Blighty are still part of the Brittanic Empire, but the Gauls may console themselves in the knowledge that they’ve won yet another bloody national surf team thingy…

Mimizan’s (been there? it smells unpleasantly of sulphur) Vincent Duvignac, fresh off dominating a heavy session at a secret sandbar near Hossegor last month as well as being all up in the pages of SE from this year’s SE Mentawai trip took out the 2009 Eurosurf in Jersey island in small, miserable gray slop.

Duvi in Indo from SE67. Photos by Laurel

Friend of the site Peter Donkey who was on a sailing holiday in Jersey this weekend from his Normandie home reckoned,  “Waves were really shit and small. It looked crap, but at least France won.” He also commented on the local beach scene. “It was freezing cold and gray, but I saw loads of well-fed girls with blonde hair and bikinis on. They all look the same.” Anyway, enough of that.

Victorious France not only surfed well but looked awesome in striking red berets. Not a fedora in sight!

Here’s the press release from our bros at Rusty:

Rusty Rider Vincent Duvignac, 22, claimed the ISA Eurosurf 2009 held in Jersey to become the New European Surf Champion.
More known for his skills in the big la Gravière’s barrels, Vincent prove during this contest that small waves weren’t a problem for him. Despite the poor conditions Duvi was onfire all week long and posted some serious scores during the whole contest: a total of 17/20 in the first round followed by a 16 in the second heat and couple of descent 13 and 14 points total to reach the Final.
The final was a really tough battle, at the beginning of the heat the Rusty Rider was stuck in third position and was struggling to get some waves with scoring potential. But in the second half of this Eurosurf 2009 final, the situation totally changed, Vincent managed to catch two good waves with potential to take the lead of the heat and over passed the Spanish Surfer Mario Lopez, Alexandre Ferreira from Portugal and his French mate Romain Laulhe….