Thurso East

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Thurso East is one of Scotland's prime surfing venue with a fast point/reef break and has hosted many international competitions.

The Thurso East wave was first surfed by famous Scottish surfer, Malcolm Findlay, in 1974. Findlay, who only started surfing after returning from a four year stint in the French Foreign Legion, was known to have surfed waves of up to 50 feet at this venue. During more recent times, surfers from Fraserburgh on the east coast of Scotland have come to dominate this quality reef break, notably Masso, Stracho, and Burner Bill (when sober!). The former of these (Masso) was known to employ highland cattle to transport his surfboard along the beach to the paddle-out point. Local surfboard builder, Pat Keiran was often employed by visiting surfers to build boards of up to seventeen feet long, simply to be able to catch the mighty rollers at this break.

Scotland's first ASP contest was held at Thurso in 2006 and won by Cornwall's Jake Kochnowicz, who rode a "smaakalip" waveski to devastating effect, shunning the normal two-bladed paddle in favour of technologically advanced webbed gloves. Work is underway at Thurso to develop a revolutionary nitrous oxide booster board which will deliver three to four seconds of concentrated thrust intended to launch the surfer into the biggest of waves. If successful, this version will supersede the diesel launcher which proved to be rather heavy and difficult to control in cross-shore winds.