Hi Southend family,
Welcome to the first update of 2026! It’s been a massive start to the year, and the momentum from our 2025 season is carrying us right into a packed February. From regional podiums to world-class club challenges, here is everything that has been happening in the world of Southend Boardriders.
🥇 2025 LiveHeats Final Results
Before we dive into the new season, we want to formally recognize our 2025 Season Champions. A huge congratulations to all our to our
Major trophy winners:
A-Grade Opens: tied champions – Koda Killorn + Tye Koolis
Open Women: Gracie Ball
Junior Boys: Cruze Holman
Junior Girls: Lauren Rogers
Cadet Boys: Toby Klein
B-Grade: Finn Appleton
Masters: Brett Anderson
Grand Masters (60+): tied champions – Timmy Bell + Brad Koolis
Full rankings and heat breakdowns are still available to view on our LiveHeats page.
Perpetual awards
Open Club Champion – Tye Koolis Club Champion – Cruze Holman
Mark Windon Club Clubman – Zac Michael
Junior Clubman – Aidan Renford
Zenn Pemberton Rising Star Award – Quentin Dubots
10 Year membership awards
Graeme O’Reilly, Murray Cooke, Matis Jos Rolland, Peter Murphy, Brodie Riley,Koby Michaels
Also big thanks to Veronica and the team at PRD Maroubra and Craig and Suzie from Maroubra Surf n Skate for the generous support of the 2025 presentation ceremony.
🌊 Australian Boardriders Battle (ABB)
We are beyond stoked to announce that Southend put on a clinical performance at the ABB Regional Qualifiers! The team battled through tough conditions and a stacked field to secure a 2nd Place Regional result. The team had to do it the hard way battling through 2 x re-qualifiers but those hard heats set us up for the run to the final. It was a tight final and not much between the teams. The Southend team pulled away early but it was the home team Elouera who were on our tails the whole time. It came down to the last wave, our team was in the box and Elouera needed 5.0 to take the win. With a minute to go a wave came though and the Eulora team got the score a 5.8. Congrats to Elouera club. They surfed really well throughout the entire event and were deserving champions. A great event for the Southend team and the team showed some great qualities to fight right to the end.
A massive shout-out to Blake Thornton, who was named the Celsius Overall Performer of the event.
This 2nd place finish means we have officially punched our ticket to the ABB Grand Final at Burleigh Heads on the weekend of 7/8th March. Let’s get ready to bring that Maroubra energy to the Gold Coast! If you haven’t already booked your flights and accom get onto it. It’s the best event and best weekend of the year.
The team – Luana Galardo, George Messiter, Blake Thornton, Tye Koolis, Judah Miller, Monty Tait
🏆 Usher Cup World Club Championship
The action continued this month at Snapper Rocks for the 2026 Usher Cup. Competing against 40 of the world’s best clubs, the Southend crew represented Maroubra with pride and finished 13th overall. In a high-stakes weekend featuring the new four-surfer format (Open Men, Women, Juniors, and Masters), our surfers went toe-to-toe with international powerhouses. The team did an amazing job and made it through to the quarter finals. They missed out on a semi final berth by 0.6 points. To finish 13th in the world is a credit to the surfers that represented Southend at this event.
We have been building a squad of surfers to take on the best clubs in the land and no doubt as the experience and the belief grows we will be finishing on more podiums at major teams challenges in the near future.
Our team for the event included Blake Thornton, Monty Tait, Tye Koolis, Judah Miller and Britt Nichols.
BT
Monty
Britt
Judah
Some of the Usher crew 2026
📅 2026 Southend AGM
It’s time to shape the future of our club! We invite all members to attend the Annual General Meeting. We are looking for fresh faces and volunteers to help out with committee roles. Some of the roles we are looking to fill include Social Media Managers, Male / Female surfer reps, Micro co-ordinator, Contest Directors and a Treasurer. If you love the club, this is the best way to give back.
Following the meeting the club will shout some refreshments whilst we enjoy watching the last game of the NRL’s Vegas round on the big screen.
When: Sunday, 1st March 2026
Where: Malabar Juniors (2nd Floor)
Time: 2:00 PM
Following the AGM we will open our 2026 membership to all last year’s members before we open the membership to the public. So keep an eye on your emails and liveheats. Again spots will be limited so don’t miss the boat.
That is all for now. See you all at the AGM or in the water!
Cheers,
The Southend Committee