It’s been a long time coming – 16 years in fact – but that only made the moment sweeter when Noosa’s Harrison Roach held the World Surf League Longboard trophy aloft at Malibu in California last week.
In one of the most exciting days of longboard competition ever seen, in near-perfect small waves at Malibu’s First Point, Harrison surfed four long heats against the world’s best, including old rival and three-times world champion Taylor Jensen and new Hawaiian sensation Kaniela Stewart, to hit the beach victorious but exhausted, where he was chaired to the podium by longtime friend and his surfboard shaper Thomas Bexon, of Noosaville’s Thomas Surfboards.
While there was a strong Noosa contingent on the sand at Malibu, there was a much bigger one glued to TV screens from the very early hours of Thursday as the Noosa-born surfer calmly and methodically produced his career-best performances to claim the title.
A longboarding superstar since his teen years, Harrison seemed destined more than a decade ago to succeed 2006 ASP longboard world champion Josh Constable as Noosa’s next world surfing champ, but there were some twists and turns in the road, and at one point he actually walked away from professional competition to focus on making adventure films at remote surfing locations.
Even when he returned to the competitive fold for the first event of the first season of the new-look WSL longboard tour, held at his home break just before Covid, he looked the goods but failed to deliver. And the heartbreak continued when he finished a very close second last year.
At 31, he may have started to think the dream would never be realised, but no victory ever tastes as sweet as one you’ve had to wait for.
Full report in Life of Brine on page 47.
