| Sport: PNG SURF’S ‘PERFECT WAVE’ |
World Bank draws up a roadmap
Malum Nalu
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Surfing PNG style... World Bank helping the sport.
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Surfing in Papua New Guinea enters exciting times in 2007 as the sport celebrates 20 years in the country.
Apart from the gala celebrations, the national titles—which will be used to select the national team to next year’s South Pacific Games in Samoa—will be staged at Lido Beach in Vanimo, Sandaun Province, in January 2007.
Coinciding with the 20th anniversary celebrations, the national titles will be the launch pad of an innovative three-year strategic plan for the Surfing Association of PNG, which has been drawn up by a World Bank consultant.
This plan—which will serve as an invaluable roadmap for actioning strategies and achieving goals—is indeed a landmark for sport in PNG.
The World Bank came on to the PNG surfing scene after noticing the internationally-unique “bottoms-up” approach developed by founder Andrew Abel.
“The national titles will be held at Lido village in Vanimo from January 10—15th,” says PNGSA president Abel.
“We estimate something between 100 and 200 surfers in all divisions.
“We will have junior males and females, open males and females, and ‘lapun’ senior masters division for those over 35.
“The national titles and selection will consist of members, male and female, of all six affiliated clubs: Sunset, Vanimo (Sandaun Province); Sero, Taurama (Port Moresby); Kavieng (New Ireland Province; and Dolf (East Sepik Province).
“There’ll be short and long board. We’ll be expecting anywhere between four feet to eight feet-plus waves.
“Following the titles will be the selection on an elite PNG surfing team, which will be made up of one open female short board, one open male short board, and one open male long board.
“The team, plus management and coach, will be sent to the Surfing Australia High Performance Training Centre on the Gold Coast.
“The reason for this is to expose our elite surfers to the rigours and demands of physically and mentally preparing for high-performance competition surfing under the guidance and training of Glen Elliot, head surfing judge, and Sasha Stocker, head surfing coach of Surfing Australia.
“It is further planned to have our elite surfers billeted by Australian surfing families and to compete at the weekend surfing circuit, and work part-time in established surfboard manufacturing factories to learn the art of shaping and glassing a surfboard, and how the shape and measurements of a board affects the performance of a surfboard in the surf.
“The surfers will then come back to their families and then do another one-month training prior to departing for Samoa in August.”
The whole event will be covered by a surf documentary filmmaker Adam Pesce, who was here in 2003 to document the history and evolution of modern surfing in Papua New Guinea
“It is the plan of the Surfing Association and Pesce and his film crew to also document young elite surfers during the national titles through to their training in Australia, to Samoa South Pacific Games, and back again to their respective home towns,” Abel says.
“The documentary will be the culmination of 20 years of promoting and developing surfing as a sport; and surf tourism as a growing niche tourism industry with our young elite surfers as ambassadors of Papua New Guinea.”
Papua New Guinea found the perfect wave in 1987 when young Abel, third-generation of the famous Abel dynasty of Kwato Island, set up a club in Vanimo with an enthusiastic bunch of novices.
From those humble ripples, the PNG Surfing Association is now a growing wave.
“The surfing association was essentially set up by a bunch of young surfers, primarily local surfers, 20 years ago,” Abel recalls.
“We became affiliated to the PNG Sports Federation as a sporting body and then the International Surfing Association, which is based out of California in the United States.”
From those humble beginnings, with an office situated out of the late Sir Cecil Abel’s residence at Waigani, the fledgling PNG Surfing Association worked to promote surfing—first and foremost—at the grassroots level.
“Our pioneering surf club was the Vanimo Surf Club, based out of Sandaun Province, in Lido village, in 1988,” Abel says.
“From those humble beginnings in Vanimo, I spent a lot of time flying backwards and forwards with my girlfriend at that time, Francesca, who is now my wife.
“She was instrumental with me in sitting down with the young Vanimo surfers to introduce surfing. At that time, they were only surfing with bellyboards and through their enthusiasm, I started to donate my own boards and then the senior surfers started to pick up the sport, started surfing the real fibreglass boards.”
Abel approached the village councillors as well as John Tekwie, at that time Sandaun Governor, who later became patron of the association.
“Basically, my approach is unique in the surfing world, and it’s been confirmed by people who come into the country,” Abel adds.
“The approach is based on what I call the ‘bottoms-up’ approach, where the surfing association works in collaboration with the respective village communities and we set up an affiliated surf club, in this case being Vanimo Surf Club.
“Vanimo Surf Club is owned and operated by the local surfing community. They affiliate to the Surfing Association.
“The Surfing Association is affiliated to organisations like the PNG Sports Federation, which has everything to do with sports; now more so with the PNG Tourism Industry Association, which is to do with tourism; and the International Surfing Association.
“And through this ‘bottoms-up’ approach, the local village community can access tourism through our affiliations with our surf tour operators in Japan, and Australia—which are our primary markets—and our close working ties with Air Niugini and the Tourism Promotion Authority.
“And this is the unique thing about this ‘bottom -up’ approach where Surfing Association is working within our constitutional framework, which is also listed in our goals and objectives on our website www.surfingpapuanewguinea.org.pg.”
To cut a long story short, such has been the interest in the way PNG Surfing Association is going about that that a student at Plymouth University recently did his PhD thesis on sustainable surf tourism in PNG. The World Bank heard about the PNGSA’s unique “bottoms-up” approach and chipped in with a consultant to draw up a three-year strategic plan.
Surfing in PNG has indeed found that elusive “perfect wave” that all surfers dream about.
• For more information about surfing in Papua New Guinea, log on to www.surfingpapuanewguinea.org.pg
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