Cosmic Creek Byron Bay Recap

This past weekend, Vissla was stoked to bring the community together during the Byron Bay Surf Festival for the very first ever Cosmic Creek Byron Bay! Plenty of crew came out to Clarke's Beach to check out the event and compete on classic crafts from legendary Australian & South African shapers of the 1970's & 1980's eras. 

All surfers in the event competed on both single fins and twin fins, with the surfers’ best combined scores across both craft determining the winners. Cosmic Creek founder Eric Diamond, from Dana Point in California, was on hand to oversee the event and provide both insightful and humorous stories of the surfboard shaping community along with local expert Tappa Teece. They were joined at times by special guest including shapers Gunther Rohn and Tony Cerff whose boards were among those being ridden on the day.

The Open Mens division saw Quinn Bruce, a former winner of the Burleigh Single Fin event, take out the title ahead of Kalani Ball, former tour surfer Mitch Crews, Hinata Aizawa, Louie Hynd and shaper Luke Daniels.

The Open Womens division was won by standout performer Lucy Callister ahead of Courtney Dunlop, Sammy Walker, Kelly O’Callaghan, Avalon Starick and Sky Presley.

The 20-30 division saw Toby Mossop get the win over Kalani Ball, Will Reichel, surfboard glasser Jason Jameson, Owen Milne and young shaper Nat Speir.

The 31-40s was taken out by Lennox Head local Joel McCabe ahead of Byron stalwart Robbie Warden, Luke Madden, Jesse Baily, Josh Kirkman and Adam Huban.

The crew who grew up in the type of boards being ridden in the event – those aged over 41 – was taken out in explosive fashion by Damien Healy ahead of Geoff Booth, Mark Lacey, Julian Blanchard, Ben Matley and Daniel Salfield from Byron’s Bay FM radio station.

A special field of creators and innovators saw Jason Jameson take the win ahead of Luke Daniels, event artist Jason Woodside and progressive shaper Alex Crews.

A special award for the surfer of the event was won by Quinn Bruce, who received his prize at a wild off-beach celebration at The Rails hotel as part of the Byron Bay Surf Festival.

All winners were announced following a performance by Takaicardia – a band in which two of the three members performed in the event – and a closing performance by Le Shiv, another band full of surfers and on the road to international success.

A special thanks to our Australian crew, the local community of Byron, Eric Diamond, Tappa Teece, and the Byron Bay Surf Festival for making the first ever Cosmic Byron a good one!

Photos by Swilly.