Papamoa Surf Casting Club’s big Kahawai tournament for May 2018 has been called off due to a lack of funding.

“We couldn’t raise enough funds to cover our expenses,” says club president Bruce Glass. The club succeeded in raising a TECT grant but other funders failed to cough up, he says.

Running a surf casting competition would cost the club about $5000.

“We got about a third of the way there and couldn’t get the rest. Because we are only a young club - we have only been going just over two years - we haven’t got funds in the bank to cover it ourselves.

“Hopefully once we have been going a bit longer we might have a bit to spare with a few more sponsors.”

They might be able to re-visit the Kahawai competition in 2019, but if the publicity does inspire a major sponsor, a tournament might still be able to run in 2018, in August or September.

“The kahawai are there all the time,” says Bruce.