Kelly Slater signs SAS’s 1,000th POW campaign postcard

Kelly Slater, 9x times Surfing World Champion, and widely recognised as the greatest surfer ever, supports Surfers Against Sewage’s (SAS) Protect Our Waves campaign (POW). Slater signed the 1,000th POW campaign postcard and today SAS will send Slater’s card to the Secretary of State for Defence (SoS). SAS’s 1,000 POW postcards call on the SoS to review the Ministry of Defence surfing ban at Broad Bench, one of the UK’s premier waves.

Broad Bench falls on the outer boundary of a Ministry of Defence firing range and surfing can be prohibited whilst the MoD are using the range. SAS understands that the MoD needs unrestricted use of their range, but believe there is a compromise that allows surfers full use of Broad Bench and the MoD full use of their range.

Slater was joined by some of the world’s best surfers, past, present and future, in pledging their support to SAS’s POW campaign. Old guard legends Jeff Hakman and past world champion Wayne Rabbit’ Bartholomew were stoked to add their signatures first, closely followed by two of the most powerful and stylish surfers in the world, Taylor Knox and Luke Egan. The next generation of possible world champions also realised the importance of the campaign with Jeremy Flores and Jordy Smith signing the POW postcard, along with Roy Powers, one of the nicest surfers you could meet. These international surfing superstars were joined by the UK’s own surfing champions Gabe Davies and Alan Stokes.

SAS are harnessing the fantastic support from these top surfers to renew our request for a meeting with the SoS for Defence, calling for a solution that will allow the army full use of their firing range and permit surfers full access to the Broad Bench wave.

SAS have been invited to a meeting with the Ministry of Defence base commander and look forward to discussing the options for allowing full access to the spot. But the power to make change lies with the SoS for Defence, so our postcard campaign is vitally important.