The BUCS Surf Champs weekender 2009 was an absolute belter of a an event. The newest one on the Outgoing roster and probably curated in the least amount of time. Pre-sales were poor, but when it comes to organisation students are quite slow off the mark sometimes, as are surfers – the ultimate hybrid of laid back “play it by ear” is a student surfer!
Anyway, throughout Thursday and Friday evening we had 700 surf loving students arrive in the newly created Surfers Village. Congrats to Sunderland Uni who rolled in at 0630 am on Friday – giving themselves a whole 90 minutes to sleep, eat and prep for the competition.
The finest arrival of the weekend was that of the weather, the perfect autumnal morning; crisp, clear, sunny, windless and very wavy – GOOD TIMES! The competitors, spectators, beginners and dog walkers made Fistral beach look more like the board masters than BUCS, with bikinis and boardies as far as the eye could see.
The surfing all day Friday and Saturday was of an epic standard as was the party in Pure on Friday night. DJ Cuddles and then Radio 1’s Mistajam brought the club to a sweaty climax with an array of banging beats. Callum from Strathclyde won a brand new wetsuit from Rip Curl and was smiling for the rest of the weekend.
Saturday night’s indoor pre-club pool party was the most relaxing moment of the weekend, with the die hard from Sheffield Hallam, Bath Spa and Cardiff turning up for a pre-rave paddle. The rest of the Surfers Village opted for a cup of tea and 2 hours crappy Karaoke courtesy of Simon Cowell.
At 10 pm we threw the doors open on the final night Old Skool Rave up and wow the reaction was underwhelming. It wasn’t until 11pm that the first party animals came through the door, and unsurprisingly it was the good folk of Bath Spa university. DJ Cuddles threw down a bangin buffet of beats and by 1 am it was going off.
By the closing tunes cuddles was dropping some filthy DnB and the majority of the crowd seemed to be from a Welsh uni, backing up the stereotypes Human Traffic laid down years ago. Many an after party took place across the Surfers Village until the wee hours, but the diehard were tucked up in bed awaiting their 7am alarm call for a final sunrise surf session!
The BUCS weekender was a resounding success for all involved, the weather and waves played a massive part, but the people involved from universities across the country, some as far as Dundee, made it a monumental inauguration for the Surfers Village.
