Welcome to the 28th Edition of The Bodyboard Report! 🤙

Home soil, freezing water, and a wind strong enough to blow the scoring tent away.

The SA Champs is back in Cape Town for the first time since 2018.

4 days of competition have passed.

Grab a windbreaker and let’s have a quick look. 👇

The South African Bodyboarding Championships are back in Cape Town for the first time since 2018, and the national title is being fought out at Derdesteen.

Derdesteen is Afrikaans for “third stone,” or “third rock” if you will.

This year's event was billed as a roaming championship, with the venue chosen each morning based on wherever the West Coast delivered the best waves between Melkbos and Blouberg.

During the last 4 days the contest hasn't roamed anywhere.

Day 1 had the “biggest” surf, as seen in the photos, and then it dropped to tiny lines of glass for the rest of the week.

Finn Randall was the standout of the Pro round, posting a 12.50 heat total built around a 6.57 wave. Tiaan Hoeben backed him up with an 11.84, and in the Masters division Paul Basson put together a 12.06.

Every single day has been run at Derdesteen, which happened to be my home break for over 10 years before I moved to Mossel Bay.

Derdes can produce some epic A-frames with a powerful kickstart that drives you down a long, curly wall.

Not very hollow down the line, save for the cracking lip that will punish you hard if you pull in under a 6ft curtain on the takeoff and get squeezed inside.

So far, not that much luck in terms of swell or perfection, but a jolly good time nonetheless.

Catch a quick 👉 Recap video here

Day 1 set the tone for the SA Champs with 2 to 3 ft surf, water sitting around 13°C, and by the afternoon the Cape Doctor was gusting close to 50 knots across the beach.

Anyone who has competed in Cape Town knows the deal.

You don't win here by waiting for a perfect wave.

You win by finding something rideable before the wind turns it to mush and your eyeballs get sandblasted… saltblasted.

The South Easter is the prevailing wind that shows up like clockwork most days at 2pm.

We call it the Cape Doctor as it clears the smog hanging over the N1 highway into the city bowl.

The wind literally “doctors” the city by cleaning its air and restoring its “health.”

This very wind also makes the Blouberg (Blue Mountain) beach area, adjacent to Derdesteen, a kiteboarder’s heaven.

The consistency of the Cape Doctor, coupled with its powerful gusts, gave rise to popular annual kiteboarding events like the Red Bull King of the Air.

This is the kind of devil wind that will pick you up and put you down on another planet if you don’t know what you’re doing.

A dude named Hugo Wigglesworth recently 👉 recorded a 40m jump.

This part of the world is also the only place I’ve launched an invert and landed in front of the wave behind the one I was riding…

Before the first heat ran at Derdesteen, the teams gathered on the sand for one of the oldest rituals in South African bodyboarding.

The mixing of the sands.

Each region brings sand from its home break.

This year that meant the 👇

Western Province 👉 Cape Town Bodyboarding

Cape Winelands (Boland & Overberg) 👉 Cape Winelands Bodyboarding

Southern Cape (Eden District | Garden Route) 👉 Eden Bodyboarding Association

Eastern Cape (J-Bay, Port Elizabeth, etc.) 👉 Nelson Mandela Bay Bodyboarding (NMBB)

KwaZulu Natal (Durban and surrounds) 👉 eThekwini Bodyboarding Association

All the sand goes together into a single container, gets mixed up, and is released back into the ocean as one.

It isn't a new idea dreamed up for 2026. It's been part of SA Champs for well over a decade, a customary symbol of sportsmanship and goodwill between provinces that spend the rest of the week battling it out in the water.

And that's the beauty of it.

SA bodyboarding has always been a sport of regions first. Durban's warm water crews, the cold water Cape Town riders, the Garden Route and Eastern Cape boys living somewhere in between.

Different water, different waves, different rivalries, and for a moment, shared sand.

The SA Champs first ran in 1987 at Supertubes in Jeffreys Bay.

Nearly 40 years later, the team prize still goes by one of the best names in South African sport, the Fishman Trophy.

It moves around the coast and so do the bragging rights. Cape Town held it in 2018, ending a 27 year wait since their previous win in 1991.

More recently, the eThekwini crew from KZN pried it back from Cape Town's hands in 2024.

This year the home team has the familiar beach, the familiar wind and the familiar cold.

Whether that's enough is what the final day will decide.

The event is also being backed heavily by the Melkbosstrand community, further down the road from Derdesteen.

Everyone from the local country club and guesthouses, to the fisheries and the corner OK Supermarket, alongside industry names like MStar Distribution came to the party.

That's the part of SA bodyboarding that I love.

The small town businesses that come together to host a national championship on their local beach, with livestreaming to boot.

Check out the final day of competition and recent highlights on

👉 Cape Town Bodyboarding YouTube

Disclaimer: The Bodyboard Report is published for informational and entertainment purposes only. All images, media, and referenced content remain the copyright of their respective owners and are used for editorial commentary and community sharing. The Bodyboard Report does not claim ownership of any third party content.