Photos: 2025 Single Fin Festival

Words by Vaughan Blakey, photos by Swilly, captions by someone who wasn't even there.

There's no better way to ease yourself into a new competitive surfing season than by marinating for an entire weekend in coconut oil, melanomas, bush buds, and pissed Queenslanders. 

That’s essentially what the Burleigh Single Fin Festival is: a time capsule of Australian surf culture dug up from under Dwayne Harris’s front verandah and poured out onto Burleigh Headland.

Everyone’s there: helmet-less smart-arse groms fangin' around on e-bikes, octogenarian babes in the same crotched bikinis they wore at the first Stubbies, generations of loke dogs with 15 bucks worth of hot chips on their shoulders, elite level surf combat bandits looking for the psychological edge, legends from every Aussie golden era you can possible imagine, brush turkeys, water dragons, kookaburras and Doris Elthrington’s skullet - looking every bit as torched as the best 80s fantasy film warlock.

I’m telling ya, it’s a mardi gras of pee-yewer Aussie character and tradition. The best of who we are as a surfing nation.

And strangest of all everyone is loving everyone deluxe. That's not always the way at Burleigh but definitely the case on this weekend thanks to the welcoming NRG of the hosts Burleigh Boardriders. The cameraderie is without peer even when it pisses down for two days straight and everyone is in danger of being electrocuted by Tappa's PA or the broadcast wiring.

Me and Smivvy have been commentating for about five or six years now and I don’t know if we’ve called a single wave in the water. We just post up and yarn with whatever maniacs wander by. This year we had Laura Enever, Occy, Tom Carroll, Rabbit Bartholomew, Tai Buddha Graham, Peter McCabe, Joel Parkinson, and Otis Carey all drop in for a chinwag about surfboards, art, the Eddie, the failings of the system, old school adventures into paradise, MP, Kirra, shit kids names, peregrine falcons, who has the best bush hooch these days, and of course Burleigh Point legend and lore. It was the funnest shit ever.

Congrats to Hunter Anderson, Ziggy Mackenzie, Tom Carroll, and Alistair Reginato for making the most of the summer crud. Truth be told plenty of Stubbies finals went down in similar shit, not that one person at this year's Single Fin cared at all. Vibes were high, heads were smiling, and the point was throbbing with the sense that maybe 2025 might be a ripper. Ian Byrne certainly looked like he was having a good time but when does he not? Surfing’s North Star I reckon. Ern Byrne for PM!

-Vaughan Blakey

Toasty boards, toasty surfers. With a requirement that all boards were dated pre-1981, the Burleigh hill was full of old workhorses. Occy chose a Phil Myers-shaped Free Flight Hydro Channel.

Ozzie Wright, Tappa Teece, Dwayne Harris, and Vaughan all blending into the background

Ryan 'Turtle' Grey also chose a Phil Myers Free Flight - there were a few to choose from

Three-time winner Parko flat turning his Odyssey, shaped by either Nev or Phil Usher

Coco Cairns and Lungi Slabb

Lungi, above and below, styling on what appears to be another Nev Odyssey

Tai Buddha taking it to vertical...sort of...on yet another Phil Myers Free flight

Different board, different surfer, same turn. Margo on a McCoy - looks like it's in great nick too.

Wilko tyre-kicking a Murray Bourton Pipe Dreams that's got a few kms on the speedo

On Sunday the surf got marginally better, the sun took off, and the rain moved in - lots of rain, enough for the groms to slip 'n' slide without the plastic

Thomas Carvalho was impressive, shown here pivoting hard in the gloom

Dubbed the 'Urban Flamingo' by Vaughan and Jed, Chris 'Ibis' Bennets showed down-the-line grace on a Jim Pollard Fluid Foils

Impressive single fin ditch by junior Balin Cullen

Tom Carroll, above, and Occy, below, committed to the 10 o'clock blast

Alistair Reginato transferring rails in a stylish top turn

Ziggy MacKenzie flowing back to the whitewash

Junior champ Hunter Anderson with Open Women's champ Ziggy MacKenzie

Masters winner Tom Carroll - with old mate doing the haka next to him

A rain shower hit as the Open Mens was announced

The clouds parted as winner Alastair Reginato held his trophy aloft - an Ian Byrne-shaped six-channel singley

Then used the six channels as a surfing shoey