Kat Hughes, WSL competitor, artist, and all round frother been up to lately.

From Moffat Beach  on the bottom o the Sunshine Coast, Kat has been a Classic Malibu team rider, riding their boards since she was 13 years old. “I’ve always had a great relationship with Peter, Janet White & the family. They’ve been wonderful friends and even really supportive in whatever I do. I get to share some of my art designs on their t-shits.”

Recent results

Last longboard competition won was Winter Classic by Alex Mal Club ‘21

Noosa Logger - 5th ‘21

Noosa Fest - QF in Women’s log ‘21

2nd - The last Australian longboard titles 

Highlights has been getting to travel to other countries like, PNG, Taiwan, California- three times for the Surf Relik  and travelling with Kirra Molnar and Lucy Small to Spain and New York. Also catching up with friends from around the world through surfing. Kat has been invited to surf in the Surf Relik 2017, 18,19 - Surfing with her great mate CJ Nelson at Oceanside, 

Most of us that have seen Kat around have been taken by the original artwork on the Classic Malibu boards she surfs. She has been doing some art on more surfboards recently. She is slowly getting her art out there, selling prints on Marketplace and just making up designs along the way. When she  is motivated and in the zone, she don’t stop being creative until late at night sometimes. 

Recently she changed over to another job from Housekeeping to Landscaping Gardener & Sprayer with my Father. (The joys of being a professional longboarder in Australia. Kat felt like a change after cleaning for over 9 years. It definitely was a big change but she is loving working outdoors.

With Covid disruption to her competitive surfing career, she has been just surfing, working and staying locally in Qld with partner Daniel and her two adorable guinea pigs, Honey and Nämi. Going forward Kat will see what happens next, Just keeping surfing and try and get her art work more exposure via online, markets stall and art shows. 

• @OZLongboarding
• [email protected]

Bea started surfing around 5 five years ago, just as a social thing in Point Lonsdale, and then gradually made it become a more frequent thing thereafter. Bea was always a short boarder and did her first comp around the age of 7 at the wahu groms comp series at Ocean Grove and she was hooked from then on in! Bea won her first state title in 2016 and then went onto junior Aussie’s that year. 

Eventually, Bea decided short boarding was too intense and didn’t enjoy the culture so she went cold turkey and went to boarding school instead! 

When she returned she started picking up the longboard more often and going to Victorian point break Point Impossible. Bea ended up making the state team and competed in the Aussie titles 2019 for junior log and longboard and came 2nd and 4th respectively. After a year off in 2020 due to COVID, Bea ripped her way to winning both rounds of open women log and longboard at the state titles in an unbelievable display that saw her earn several near-perfect rides. Bea was super excited for nationals this year but will have her fingers crossed all is good next year.

Her brother Ted is an up-and-coming star of his own and has deflected from short boarding as well to the fine art of logging. 

Ted has had some great results across both surfing crafts with several wins in the Wahu national grom comp series in Victoria as well as winning other regional and local events.

Through the Surfcoast Longboarders club, Ted has won multiple club events and has also won under 18s longboarding and logger titles in the Victorian state rounds twice.

Bea hopes surfing takes her to cool places to meet cool people. When international travel opens up, she’d love to do some comps and travel in the northern hemisphere in some warmer waters! I’m passionate about surfing for mental health and want to get involved with the ocean mind. Bea is remarkably smart and in the future wants to study biomed or something in the health field. 

Ted just wants to have fun and meet great people. In the 2020 lockdown, he could focus on longboarding as a physical and mental outlet, seeing him improve drastically. One day he’d love to do the Vans Duct Tape Invitational. 

Both have amazing futures in the sport and they are certainly a pair to watch out for in the future.

• @OZLongboarding
• [email protected]

From ripping on bodyboards to winning Australian Old Mal Titles to being the main man behind the Mick Branch Memorial Comp, JJ Starr is a star. Just ask any of the huge group of people that are proud to call him their friend.

• @OZLongboarding
• [email protected]

Tavis grew up in Durban, South Africa, where he really spent most of his early life in and around the water mostly Bodyboarding, until moving to New Zealand in around 2001. 

He starting to surf there and got his first shortboard (funny enough made in South Africa), later moving to Australia where he spent some time in Rockhampton (not fun). When he moved to Brisbane around 2016 Travis got back into surfing mostly as a weekend warrior. With impeccable timing, he moved to the Gold Coast in Feb 2020 just as Covid kicked in, along with a tiny swell, which is when I started longboarding and haven’t looked back!

Travis’s photography journey started from "bad Luck" having injured his wrist. He required multiple surgeries, so he picked up a camera to help get closer to the water. Originally he started just shooting from shore then with a Go Pro, to an iPhone with housing, to where he now has a full range of camera water gear.

Back in April this year Tavis was made redundant and decided “I would try and pursue my passion for photography and the water and decided to work for myself”. So now he is working on developing a client base doing surf sessions, products and working towards more lifestyle photography. 

Some of his highlights have been, published in White Horses, Pacific Longboarder, and Surf Girl Magazine and having a life-size image on the wall at the new Adreno superstore on the Gold Coast.

• @OZLongboarding
• [email protected]

Dan Croskery, ANZAC more or less. Gisborne born and bred and 20 years in Australia. Loves both countries. His daughter Sahdarna, 12 years old was born at the Tweed hospital. He has an amazing Australian partner Naome West, she has 4 boys aged 8, 10, 13 and 16. 

Dan moved back to Aotearoa/NZ to reconnect with whanau/family, culture, to study and to uncrowded waves. 

There he works in the mental health sector as a community support worker creating independence for clients with mental health disorders like Schizophrenia, psychosis and bipolar. Now Dan is into his 4th year of a 6 year study Journey.  He has a diploma in health and well-being, mental health, and addictions. He is 2 years into a 4 year bi-cultural social work degree, with the focus to be a mental health clinical specialist when he’s finished. 

Surfing wise Dan is the president of the Gisborne boardriders, head coach and head of longboard development. The club is doing amazing things in the community with surfing as a vehicle for well-being, and are more inclusive community-focused, but still cater for performance surfing. Some community initiatives have been surfing for farmers (mental health) Surf for life (disadvantaged kids), Coast kids surf for life, East coast kids, taking surfing to small coastal towns with Surfing and cultural experiences. Still surfs a lot, enjoying a little foiling as well. His spare time if any is spent doing Reno’s on a 1940s villa.

Last contest results would be 
 2017 runner up Malfunction 
 2017 runner up O40 Noosa Festival of Surfing 
 2019 Open modern longboard circuit champion GBC

• @OZLongboarding
• [email protected]

Born and raised in North Haven, Mid North Coast NSW, Matt started body boarding as a really young grom, before getting his first surfboard from his Dad when he was 7years old. Mainly he rode shortboards and body boards until he was mid teens. He grew up watching local guys like Ian Bell, Ian Goodace, Gary Taylor, Michael Young and Mick Branch ripping on longboards and thought, he needed to give that a try.

Moving to the Gold Coast in his early 20’s and Matt was lucky enough to learn a lot from Wayne Deane, Wayne and Col looked after him like one of their family, spending A LOT of time surfing with Wayne, Jimi and Noa. 

He competed in longboard contest all over Australia and around the world at different levels, from local regional contests, State and Australian Titles, Qualifying series and made the World Longboard tour in Italy in 2011. His best results came mainly from riding Old Mal’s and Logs,

Becoming a mutliple Log and Old Mal Champ at Crescent Head, 4x Malfunction Champ, and a bunch of other wins at Byron Bay, Evan’s Head, Scotts Head etc. 

He has always surfed a large range of boards, from fishes, shortboards, Performance Longboards, Log’s, Old Mal’s and Big Wave Gun’s.

In 2013 Matt started working for Pyzel Surfboards, where today he is the Brand Manager working with world tour surfers John John Florence, Jack Freestone and Tyler Wright.

He stepped back from chasing the longboard contest scene (still doing the odd fun event) and now likes to chase bigger swells paddling into many at places like Pipeline, Waimea Bay, Shipsterns, Cloudbreak, Uluwatu etc. In 2018 at Uluwatu with one of the biggest swell’s in over 30 years Matt paddled into some of the biggest waves ridden in Indonesia.  

Nowadays his favourite waves are Pipe, Waimea Bay, Uluwatu, & Lovers.

• @OZLongboarding
• [email protected]

• @OZLongboarding
• [email protected]

Riley hails from Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland with his local surf-spot being the point at Moffat Beach. He has a huge list of surfing achievements including being the 2019 Australian Junior Longboard Champion. He took out the trifecta at the Agnes Water Longboard Classic 2020 plus he snuck in the best hang 10 of the event as well. Not content with just competing, Riley is always ready to lend a hand, putting up tents, judging and doing whatever he can to help. 

Surfing Highlights include, surfing against Joel Tudor on the WSL Longboard World Tour, getting dropped in on by four world champions in the span of one week, being knocked straight out of the Noosa Festival Old Mal event after coming runner-up the year before. (don’t know how this is a highlight lol), What it felt like to get the Trifecta at Agnes, going to the Whalebone completely unknown and placing 2nd in the WSL Pro Event, constantly being mistaken as a longboard skateboarder

Now in his second year of psychology at the University of the Sunshine Coast he is a top performing student and involved in various representative roles. He is the Founding Chairperson of the High-Performance Student Athlete program and the Student Senate Representative. This framework was designed to help student athletes’ excellence in both their sport and studies simultaneously, and improve students experience at university. He is the President of the USC Psychology Club and is currently organising various events for psychology students at his university. Riley is also employed as a USC ambassador regularly representing his university at large gatherings and careers expo

Other achievements outside of surfing include, Winner of the 2018 Environment & Liveability Awards, Australian Defence Force 2017 Long Tan Youth Leadership and Teamwork Award, Finalist 2017 Young Achiever of the Year, Local Sporting Champion Grant, India Consulate Social Media Ambassador, where he promoted the connection between India, sport, and the tradition of yoga for the International Day of Yoga 2020 and he took a lead role to connect Australian sporting achievements with the Indian Consulate in Sydney

• @OZLongboarding
• [email protected]

Lucas Proudfoot is a Bundjalung / South Sea Islander man with a background in professional surfing, representing Oxbow clothing when they were the major player in longboard surfing, contemporary music as the front man for Max Judo, and traditional Aboriginal dance. 

 After Lucas took on the professional surfing circuit for five years and became an internationally-ranked long-board surfer, reaching a career high of world number nine while representing Oxbow clothing.

 As a cultural performer in his teens he was part of an Indigenous cultural dance troupe, The Minjungbal Dancers, performing at local, national and international events, including tours to Asia and Brazil. 
 
 Between 2000-10 Lucas performed professionally with the band Max Judo touring to Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica, Spain, France, Portugal, Hawaii and South Africa. 
 
 Through his business Circular Rhythm, Lucas has merged his talents into a solo performance that has kids singing and dancing. Circular Rhythm offers live Indigenous Australian music and performances to audiences as diverse as school children, conference delegates and tourism visitors all across the nation.

After many years travelling Australia and the world, Lucas has decided to put his experiences to paper. His latest endeavour, a six-part adventure series named The Proud Foots, is written for six to ten year olds and highlights Australia’s diverse Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander cultures, while touching on other cultures from around the globe.

He credits his mother and father as major influences on him.

• @OZLongboarding
• [email protected]

Rachael Tilly & Shannon Brooke Hughes bring you the Women’s Surf Network as we talk about what’s going on with their brand new podcast: 

Rachael is from California and currently living in Australia. Rachael set her name in surf history in 2015 when she won the @wsl World Longboard Title, holding the record of surfing’s youngest ever World Champion. While she continues to compete on the Longboard Tour, she has also taken a full-time job at the World Surf League based in Coolangatta, Gold Coast. 

• @OZLongboarding
• [email protected]