Surfers in crowdfunding plea ahead of Euros in Portugal
Three members of Thurso-based North Shore Surf Club are preparing to represent their country in the European championships in Portugal – and are hoping for a positive response to a crowdfunding appeal to help pay for the trip.
Far north trio Phoebe Strachan, Craig McLachlan and Mark Boyd are among the seven-strong Scotland team heading to Santa Cruz for EuroSurf from July 18-25.
While honoured to have been selected, they and their team-mates are having to finance the journey themselves. An online fundraising page has been set up with a target of £4000 for the team as a whole.
Strachan, the Scottish women’s champion, works as a joiner for a local firm.
“When you get selected to represent your country, you don’t really expect that you’re having to pay it all out of your own pocket,” she said. “You think that there will be some kind of funding out there.
“Pretty much everyone else in the team, they don’t have high-paid jobs so we’re just trying to cover our costs. We’re all paying our own flights out there but the crowdfunder is just to cover a bit of accommodation and also entry fees.
“I hate doing crowdfunders because it’s the same people that give every time, and they are so kind. I feel really bad asking again, but otherwise we wouldn’t get to go – I one hundred per cent couldn’t afford it.
“It’s a lot of money, at the end of the day, and it’s never a holiday. There’s no downtime.
“You’re up at five in the morning, you’re not getting to your bed until late. When you’re not competing, you’re supporting the team or you’re training. There is always stuff going on.
“We’ve had to get our uniforms made, and obviously flying with boards is so expensive. Sometimes your board ends up getting broken.
“That happened to me a few years ago – I arrived and they’d lost my board and I spent two days trying to get them to deliver it, and they delivered it in three pieces.
“There are just so many costs, so a little bit of help will go a long way.
“There is no money in surfing, unfortunately. All we’re looking for is £4000 in total and so far we’ve raised £2600, so we’re just trying to get that last push.”
Strachan, who first competed in the Euros in 2015, will be doubling up in the longboard and shortboard categories.
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“Two years ago, against all odds, I came third in the repechage final for longboarding, so I just narrowly missed out on a place in the final,” she said.
“It was so surprising because I never practise longboarding, I’m not a particular fan of it. I just ended up getting roped into it.
“It’s shortboarding that I’ve won titles in, so it was a bit of a surprise when I did really well in a division I wasn’t really meant to do well in.
“The level is really, really high so it’s always tough.
“We’ve just come back from a training camp at the wave pool near Edinburgh. We had a coach up from down south so it was good to get the whole team together for a bit of training before we go out because all of us normally just train on our own.”
The North Shore surfers can expect warmer waters than back home – although not massively so, according to Strachan.
“Most will be wearing wetsuits but it’ll be a thinner wetsuit than at home,” she said.
Strachan (29), McLachlan (19) and Boyd (38) featured prominently in the Scottish National Surfing Championships held at Thurso East in April.
Strachan lifted the open women’s title for the fifth time in a row and the sixth time altogether.
McLachlan won the open men’s title for a third successive year, and for the fourth time in all. Boyd, a previous open men’s champion and masters winner, was McLachlan’s closest challenger.
Another NSSC member, Dylan Fogarty-Macdonald, came first in the masters section for those aged 40 and over.
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