Latest news with #Surf!
BBC News
28-03-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
'Nothing stops me,' says Cornish surfer with one leg
"Nothing stops me when I set my mind to it."Pegleg Bennett, 55, grew up surfing with one leg and has conquered some of the biggest waves in the his story, along with many others, is part of Surf!, a celebration of 100 years of surfing in with a birth defect that led to the amputation of his foot at 13 months old, Pegleg learned to surf without a leg, initially using a beach activity leg provided by the NHS. "I didn't want to be sat on the beach, I wanted to be involved," he even drilled holes in his prosthetic leg to improve its functionality, much to the dismay of his prosthetist."The kit we are using now, from carbon fibre and titanium, has taken my surfing to another level," he said. Para surfing has undergone a revolutionary transformation, according to Pegleg, who changed his name by deed turning point came in 2015 when the International Surfing Association (ISA) hosted the first Adaptive Surfing World Championships, bringing together surfers from around the globe. Since then, the sport has exploded in popularity, said Pegleg, with the adaptive surfing, or para sufing, community becoming the fastest-growing segment of the surfing world. Team England para surfing team is now ranked seventh in the world, its highest-ever placing, with world champions among its ranks. "When surfing began in Cornwall in the 1960s, there wasn't any recognition for para surfing," said Phil Williams, Team England para surf manager."There was a lack of understanding, equipment, and support, making it quite challenging. Thankfully, that's changed now."English para surfing has consistently performed well on the international stage and the sport is thriving in Cornwall, with athletes like Melissa Reid, a three-time world champion in the visually impaired category, and two-time world para surfing champion Charlotte Banfield."It's in good shape. we have some amazing athletes coming through," said Surfing England Para Surfing Roadshow, showcasing the world of para surfing to newcomers, kicks off on 10 May in Bournemouth, with further sessions on dates through to September at The Wave in Bristol, Scarborough, Bude, Croyde and South Shields. Pegleg said he was "honoured" to have his surfboards and a prosthetic leg and other items exhibited Surf!, at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, until January Banfield's adaptive board and gold medal both also feature in the Bleakley, who curated Surf!, said: "Adaptive and para sports have really flowered in the last 15 years, and what's fantastic about surf culture in Cornwall is that we have world champions from the para community."Although para surfing narrowly missed out on the 2028 Los Angeles Games, there is strong hope for its inclusion in the Paralympics in Brisbane in 2032, and the opportunities that could bring for extra funding. As for Pegleg, the waves keep rolling and he is still chasing swells."As far as my competition life goes, I'm gonna keep competing as long as I can, until my body says you've had it or the purse strings go," he said."I just want to keep surfing forever."
Telegraph
27-03-2025
- Telegraph
Surf!: Middle England, here's why you owe surfers a debt of thanks
There's a Cornish word, mordros, for the relentless sound of the sea. You barely hear it in Falmouth harbour, outside the National Maritime Museum Cornwall; but inside their new exhibition, Surf!, it's inescapable. The very first video, on a passage wall, gives you both that roar and a surfer's-eye view of a perfect tube. You glide across water like blue-green glass. The wave curls and breaks above you, foam at its leading edge. This, to any surfer, is bliss. Surf! is a whirl of 350 objects, ranging from surfboards and vintage magazines to a VW campervan in '60s trim. You survey the century-old history of Cornish surfing, which amounts – since Cornwall was where Britons got on their boards – to discovering what this old Polynesian hobby, or sport, or lifestyle, has done for our culture generally. Curator Sam Bleakley, a man with salt sea in his veins, has spent over a year sourcing these objects, then laying them out among briskly informative labels and videos in which surfers ride and fall. The heroes are the boards, 103 of them, elegant monoliths arranged around the hall. As their shapes and sizes change, so does social history. The first one, from the 1920s, resembles a coffin lid, and was carved by the local undertaker in nearby Perranporth. Back then, 'prone' riding was the way: surfers lay flat, as bodyboarders do. The assimilation, as you learn, was at this point going well. A 1930 Southern Railway poster offers 'Bude, for Sunshine and Surfing'. Woollen swimsuits abound. On the cover of a 1945 issue of Illustrated magazine, a smiling young woman stands in the shallows, toting a wooden board: 'a war worker on holiday'. Over the next few decades, the boards got longer and the riders leapt to their feet. Some beaches, in the late 1960s, banned surfers from doing this, notionally for reasons of safety but with an understreak of disdain. The police would descend on beaches to keep the middle-class picture of peace. Surfing acquired, or was given, an edge – hippies, Californians, 'alternative' types, allergic to mainstream society – a profile that endures. But society owes them thanks. In 'Activism', a section that might have been larger, you see how the collective Surfers Against Sewage, formed in 1990, fired an early salvo in what's now a war, waged from across the political spectrum, against the poisoning of our waterways. This exhibition means something to me: I grew up surfing in south Wales, which in climate, atmosphere and (whisper it) quality of surf, could be Cornwall's Celtic twin. I was inclined to be impressed, then, and I feel churlish in suggesting flaws – that the show's a little overstuffed for the modest space; that some corners seem accordingly cramped; that the small skateboarding display wasn't, to my mind, justified. In every other respect, Surf! is relentlessly fascinating, and shows how an apparently marginal activity captured Britain's changing face. At the same time, it conveys something more elemental: what it is to paddle out, turn back to the shore, and feel momentarily free.
