The world’s best surfers are coming back to Raglan. The World Surf League confirmed on Tuesday that the New Zealand Pro at Manu Bay will stay on its Championship Tour for 2027, giving the Waikato town a second year on professional surfing’s top circuit after a debut in May that the league and the Government both call a success.
The news came a day after another big result for Raglan surfing. Alani Morse, the Raglan teenager who surfed Manu Bay as a wildcard against the world’s best in May, won bronze in the Under 16 Girls division at the ISA World Junior Surfing Championships in El Salvador on Monday, New Zealand time. Surfing New Zealand said the podium was the best result by a New Zealand surfer in 19 years.
The announcement, dated 15 September, says the league and the Government have “strengthened their partnership” to bring the event back. Exact dates are not yet set. The WSL says the full 2027 tour schedule will be released later this year, and the Waikato District Council is telling residents the same.
“The WSL is so excited to see the CT return to Raglan in 2027,” said WSL Asia Pacific president Andrew Stark. “Raglan is a truly special place, with a deep surfing heritage, world-class waves and an incredibly passionate local community, and after an amazing event in 2026, we know the athletes and fans will embrace the opportunity to experience it again.”
Stark also thanked “the Waikato and Raglan communities for welcoming the WSL back.”
Tourism and Hospitality Minister Louise Upston said the return would put the region in front of an international audience again. “Following the success of this year’s event, bringing the world’s best surfers back to one of New Zealand’s most iconic surf breaks will once again showcase Raglan and the Waikato to a global audience,” she said. “We know major events deliver real economic impact, and the return of the World Surf League is another great example of that in action.”
The event is backed by the Government’s Events Attraction Package, a $40 million fund for bringing international events to New Zealand. When the Raglan stop was first announced in January, 1News reported it would be supported from that package. The NZ Herald later reported the fund covers 2026 and, where scheduling requires, 2027, and has also supported concerts, football and rugby league fixtures and food and beer festivals. Neither the WSL nor the minister put a dollar figure on the Government’s contribution to the 2027 surf event.
This year’s New Zealand Pro ran from 15 to 25 May with 36 men and 24 women, the fourth stop of the 2026 tour. It was the first time the league had staged a combined men’s and women’s Championship Tour event in New Zealand. As the NZ Herald noted, it was also the first time the men’s tour had been held in New Zealand waters. Taranaki hosted women’s tour events from 2010, when a 17-year-old Carissa Moore won her first competition at the top level.
Sixteen years later Moore won again, this time at Manu Bay. The Hawaiian five-time world champion beat American Sawyer Lindblad in the women’s final, while Brazil’s Italo Ferreira, the 2019 world champion, beat Australian Morgan Cibilic in the men’s final. Earlier in the event reigning world champion Yago Dora of Brazil posted a perfect 10-point ride in his quarterfinal, as Newswire reported on finals day.
The wave is the reason the tour came. Manu Bay, a few kilometres west of the township, is a long left-hand point break that surfers around the world have known about since it featured in the 1966 film The Endless Summer. Surfing New Zealand’s release says it offered “a lengthy left canvas” that suited both modern high-performance surfing and traditional carving turns, and that Raglan “proved that its arrival on the CT is long overdue.”
For New Zealand surfers, the part that matters most is the wildcards. In 2026 three New Zealanders, Billy Stairmand, Alani Morse and Tom Butland, got a start on home soil. For 2027 the WSL says two New Zealanders will again get wildcard spots through a local trials event. The timing and format of those trials have not yet been announced.
Morse is likely to be one of the names people watch. She was just 15 when she earned her wildcard in April, the youngest surfer in the women’s draw at Manu Bay. In El Salvador she scored an 8.37 total in a messy one-metre final affected by onshore wind, finishing behind Australia’s Lucy Darragh and American Zoe Panettiere. Earlier that day she and Tahiti’s Takihei Ellacott knocked out highly rated Australian Talia Tebb in the semifinals.
“Honestly, I don’t think it’s gonna settle in for a few days,” Morse told Surfing New Zealand. “I’ve always dreamed of being an ISA medallist, so it just doesn’t seem real yet.”
She dedicated the medal to her late grandmother, who died two weeks before she left for El Salvador. Making the final also meant missing her flight to Brazil, where she was booked into a Qualifying Series event starting within a day. “Of course it was extremely worth it,” she said.
Her result helped the New Zealand junior team to eighth of the competing nations, its best placing since the championships were held in New Zealand in 2010. The event drew 474 surfers from 56 countries.
The 2027 decision has been made before Raglan has published its own verdict on the first event. In July the Raglan Chronicle reported that the Whāingaroa Raglan Destination Management Organisation and the Raglan Naturally Community Trust were surveying businesses on visitor numbers, sales and staffing, and residents on community pride, traffic and environmental effects. A public community impact report has been promised. Newswire has not found any published findings yet, and they will be worth reading alongside the Government’s case for the event when the town starts planning for next May.
For now, Raglan can look forward to the world’s best at Manu Bay for a second year, and a group of young local surfers, led by a world junior medallist, has a clear reason to keep training.
Were you at Manu Bay in May, or do you live in Raglan? Should the town make the surf tour a permanent fixture, and who would you like to see get the 2027 wildcards? Tell us in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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