2025 Festival of Froth

Nazzareno Picchianti
Sep 2
2 min read

The forecast had looked good leading into the Festival of Froth. An ugly lump-of-a-low form Antarctica was positioning itself to send swell our way, and it arrived (along with the rain!) the night before the competition.

Competitors were greeted with a solid and swell increasing substantially throughout the day, with a lot of water moving around, so they had their work cut out for them.

Jay Van Deurse, fresh back from a long injury, put down two great rides to log the highest score in the opening rounds.

The dust settled after the semis with four familiar names making the finals – Chris Anderson, Jarrod Bridges, Jack Macrae and Josh Kirkman – all members of this year’s Aussie Osprey team. As expected by bodysurfers of this rare calibre, the finals was a desperately close affair – 0.07 points separated second, third and fourth. It was Chris who finished in 4th, not being able to find a second solid wave despite surfing with the prowess that earned him the world gong. Josh and Jarrad were tied on score just 0.07 above Chris. However, it was Jarrod who squeaked into second place, courtesy of a higher single wave score. But it was Jack Macrae with his beautiful style and grace that rose above, with his best wave scoring almost one point higher than all the other rides. Congrats to Jack on his first Bodysurfing World Tour QS win!

The women’s finals featured two current Osprey members, Katy Collins and Ann-Lei Petit, both of whom finished in the top 5 at this year’s IBSA World’s, and two first time QS finalists, Bridget Kruger and Eloise Davison. Bridget emerged from the final all smiles with a 4th place in hand. Eloise, who had won her heat to progress directly to the final, made the podium. The win was battled out between last year’s winner of this event Anna-Lei, and current Wedge QS champion Katy. The flow with the wave and variety of tricks of these two has improved dramatically in the last twelve months and the lead changed several times during the final. Ultimately, both had very similar scores between their first - and second - best rides, but Anna-Lei just barely shaded Katy’s scores in both to sneak the win.