Hossegar Surf Life Saving Festival 2009

Hossegor Surf Life Saving Festival 2007

A small delegation from SLSA Wales visited Hossegor from 1-3 November this year to take part in the Hossegor Surf Life Saving Festival 2007. This trip was to improve relations with other countries and investigate if a bigger development trip could be possible in the future.

Travel to Hossegor is easy and at this time of the year accommodation is cheap and plentiful – (The Welsh party flew Ryanair from Stanstead to Biarritz for £38 return!).

The Festival competition comprised of a Masters competition on 1 Nov (the French Championships and also a Masters European Event running along side it) and an Open Interclub/Interregion event on 2 & 3 November together with a leg of the European Surf Boat Series.

About 40 Masters took part in the Masters event on the Thursday and 100+ in the Open on Friday and Saturday.

Entry fees were only 10 euros for Masters and 20 euros for the Open regardless of the number of events– with winners each event in the Open winning a first prize of 150 euros! Any qualified competitor aged over 14 was allowed to take part in the Open.

The competition has now run for 4 years and the usual competition events took place (swim, board, ski, ironman, sprint, flags, 2K and relays).

Whilst the level of competition was quite high I am sure quite a few euros prize money would have headed back to Wales or the bars of Hossegor

The welcome from the organisers of the competition was simply suberb and the organisers were very happy to tell our party that they would be happy to see a larger team (or teams) from Pays De Galles in 2008. 

If you visit the following links you can see more information and photos from the event. 

http://oceanmanfestival.canalblog.com/

http://www.dicks-sand-bar.com/pics.htm