Surfing: Swell day for top-scoring Christie

The massive 4m swell pounding the Dunedin coastline was no match for New Zealand's No1 Richard Christie (Mahia), who dominated his opponents at the national surfing championships at St Clair beach yesterday.

The event is the second of six events in the national series.

The large swell and strong southerly winds put the ocean in a wild, winter-like state.

Christie blazed a path through the water, gaining the day's highest heat score of 15 points out of 20 and individual wave scores of 8.17 and 6.83 with a series of big committed turns on both his forehand and backhand.

He was the only surfer in the open men's division to score double digits in the challenging conditions. Many surfers struggled to get more than one or two waves, despite the heats being extended to 25 minutes.

Whangamata surfer Matt Scorringe (26) made a comeback to the competitive arena after spending the best part of the past 12 months overcoming cancer. He is now in remission.

Scorringe won his heat, scoring 9.20 points, to progress alongside Adam Grimson (Gisborne).

Scorringe now confronts No1 seed Jay Quinn (Gisborne), who won the first event of the series in Gisborne in November.

Other surfers to win their first-round heats included Sam Willis (Gisborne), Leon Santorik (Raglan) and Tyler Lawson (Hawkes Bay).

Local surfers were represented by Nat Parsons, Luke Murphy and Josh Thickpenny, who all placed second in their heats to move through to the final 32 in the open men's division.

Surfers in the under-18 boys' division had to deal with the dropping tide, which proved challenging for many of the surfers, who would catch their first wave and have to run around St Clair beach and back to the channel to get back into the line-up.

Raglan's Ben Poulter dominated his opponents in much the same fashion as Christie, scoring 14.1 out of a possible 20 points to win his heat.

Mount Maunganui' s Todd Doyle scored 10 to win his heat with some good right-handers on his backhand and floaters.

Young Dunedin surfer Tom Bracegirdle progressed to the semifinals despite catching only one wave in his heat, when he got an early wave and performed two of the biggest backhand re-entries of the day to score 7.83 out of a possible 10 points.

It was the second-highest-scoring wave of the day. He finished the heat in second place behind Jules Craft (Gisborne).

Other juniors to progress included Tane Wallis (Piha), Mackenzie Christie (Mount) and Sid West (Auckland).

Day two is expected to be at St Clair beach with an 8am start. The order of events will be confirmed once officials assess the conditions in the morning.