Port Macquarie Surfboard Riders Club to debut at the Australian Boardriders Battle final

They might have the youngest team, but the Port Macquarie Surfboard Riders Club won’t die wondering when it makes its debut in the final of the Australian Boardriders Battle this weekend.

When the final of the Australian Boardriders Battle kicks off this weekend in Newcastle, some of the country’s most famous and storied boardriders clubs will be on the start list.

From two-time winners North Narrabeen, to Gold Coast institution Snapper Surfriders Club and defending champions North Shelly – they’ll all be gunning for the title.

However among them will also be the Port Macquarie Surfboard Riders Club, who’ll make history by competing at the national final for the first time.

“This is the first year we’ve made the finals, and as a club and a little town we’re pretty proud to be there and to have a dig against the bigger clubs,” says president Scott Lawrence.

Indeed, not just a debutant and a smaller club, but Port Mac will quite possibly also hold the record for having the youngest ever team to compete at the finals.

“It’s a young team at the moment – our junior is only 14 and our opens surfers are only just 18 – so I think it’s a club with a lot of kids who are going to come through,” says Lawrence.

Port Macquarie Surfboard Riders Club has qualified for the national final of the 2023 Australian Boardriders Battle for the first time. Photo: PMSRC.

As for the team, 14-year-old Archie Branch will represent the club as the junior surfer, 15-year-old Imojen Enfield, who recently finished third at the Australian Junior Surfing Titles, will be the women’s competitor, while Imojen’s older brother Kayle Enfield will partner Jack Swan – both 18 – as Port’s open division surfers.

Bringing some experience will be former QS surfer Match Van Der Veer, who will be the club’s over-35s competitor.

Despite being one of the youngest teams in Boardriders Battle history, Lawrence is confident his chargers will be up to the task.

“We’ve tried to pick the crankiest, those who aren’t going to get intimidated too easily and paddled over by some ex-CT surfers. We could have pulled some ex-CT guys into the team, but we wanted to purely keep those guys who turn up every month. That’s our club,” he said.

“It’s a solid team, they all get along really well. How will we go this year? I don’t know. But it’ll all be a learning curve and the strength will come in the next few years. That’s the idea of this club.”

Indeed, the fact that Port Mac are even competing at the national finals feel like a huge victory in itself.

The club overcame traditional north coast heavyweight Le-Ba Boardriders during the northern NSW regional qualifiers in October to book its spot in the final.

“We were pretty happy to get through,” says Lawrence.

“We’ve been training well and truly before the regionals came along, and since qualifying we’ve kept the training going and have had some assistance from some of the local coaches here as well.”

The Australian Boardriders Battle brings together some of the country’s best surfers and boardriders clubs.

The appearance this weekend in Newcastle is also a vindication of the concerted effort to build up the club over the past five years.

Before that, around 30 or so diehards would turn up to the club’s monthly contests. However an effort to encourage more juniors in boys groms (U12s), girls groms and micro-groms has seen numbers explode.

“We got some more of the parents involved, started publicising it a bit more,” says Lawrence.

“All of a sudden we had about 80/90 people turning up for these events every month, so it really took off.”

He added: “It’s a pretty nice place to live and a pretty nice place to surf, so we just try and emphasise that fun factor in the club and building friendships that last forever. They do, I’ve been doing it for 35 years in the club and I’ve got mates I met when I was 13 who are still good mates.”

And while good organisation certainly got the ball rolling, Lawrence says another unexpected event further helped to boost interest.

“I think Covid also encouraged anyone who surfed to surf more, because it was just about the only sport that you could do.

“It was a bit tricky to organise during Covid, but it was probably the easiest of the sports to do, considering that you’re on the beach.”

In addition to representing their club and the town against some of the country’s best surfers, the Boardriders Battle final also gives the club the opportunity to draw national attention to one very pressing local issue: the planned rebuild of the Port Macquarie breakwall.

Citing concerns over the safety of boat users and pedestrians, caused by what the state government says is damage to the breakwall, plans have been unveiled to rebuild the wall.

There are proposals to rebuild large sections of the Port Macquarie breakwall at Town Beach.

This would include digging up a large portion of the structure in order to widen the footpath, as well as adding additional rocks to the tip of the wall, which has raised concerns among the local surfing community.

“The concern with that is how it will change the flow of sand to Town Beach, which along with Lighthouse Beach, is one of our main surfing beaches, not just for our contests, but for the longboard club, the bodyboard club,” says Lawrence.

Critics say the state government hasn’t provided sufficient evidence to prove that the breakwall is deteriorating, and are concerned about the impacts of the proposed construction.

“Damien King, he was a world champion bodyboarder, has been really vocal with it in terms of the potential impact of what adding extra rocks to the tip of the wall will do, as well as digging up and replacing it.

“They have done works to the wall over time and it has altered the surf and the way the beach breaks. Certain parts of Town Beach don’t break like they used to.

“We also got calls from people down at Forster – they changed the breakwall down there and that completely ruined a wave that was pretty constant.”