World Longboarding Champ and fellow California, Jen Smith took top honors at the recent Banana Boat Pro held in Noosa, Queensland, Australia. The Banana Boat Pro (a women’s only longboarding event) is one of many events at the Noosa Festival of Surfing, which has been running on Aus’s Sunshine Coast for well over a decade. Originally a plain old surf compo, the festival has taken shape over the years and is now proud host of a 7 day long surf expo, displaying surfing and the surf lifestyle as it is. As well as major surf industry brands, a selection of epic live music, give-aways and surf movie premiers we available to those who visited Noosa.

The Banana Boat Pro, was fortunate enough to be graced with decent swell and waves. The final day saw decent, clean 1m waves pull through, which provided heaps of fun and a solid platform for the girls to work their magic. When Aus’s Longboarding Champ, Chelsea Williams, and hope for the comp got knocked out by Hawaiian’s Jana Irons (yes she is related to the Irons brothers), it was evident that the contest would be an interesting one. Although Jana was on fire in the finals, she just couldn’t snatch the victory from Jen Smith, who, to be honest, lay down the smack from her first heat. So with Jen in first place followed by Jana in second, third place was awarded to French longboarder, Justine Dupont. After her win this is what Jen had to say about Aus and the comp; “What a fantastic way to finish this amazing event in these perfect point waves – I can’t believe it! – I’ve had an awesome time in Australia competing and free surfing the whole coastline and to win today really caps it off!”

Apart from the compos, surfers and spectators attended Shaun Tomson’s Bustin’ down the Doors doccie premier. As a red carpet charity event, the premier was attended by surfing’s A-list, as well as Shaun himself and several of the stars. Without giving too much away, the movie is a look at the revolution surfing went through more than 30 years ago, a revolution that is still evident today. It stars a group of South African and Aussie surfers from the 70’s and is a journey through the changes and developments of surfing as we once knew it till now. It was screened at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, which proves this is not just your average surfing flick. Get your hands on a copy soon!

Tags: Jen Smith, Surfing