The WSL returns in 2027. Hopefully the kiwi wāhine behind the scenes will too.

Last week, the World Surf League confirmed their championship tour is coming back to Aotearoa. And from what I saw and heard all week (good turnout, a lift for local business, and happy competitors), the whole community was stoked to have it.

Looking back, what stood out most clearly to me was the local wāhine getting stuck in all over the show. Everywhere I walked, my friends had a job. I say this as an enthusiastic surfing fan with little to no knowledge of how the tour works, but I expected the WSL to arrive with hordes of their own staff from Australia and the USA. And to my surprise, this competition really felt like it was ours as much as theirs.

So in true i-did-a-journalism-paper-at-uni, maybe-i'll-work-for-stab-one-day fashion, I whipped out my A6 Muji notebook and wrote about each of the women helping bring the Raglan Pro 2026 to life. I'm listing them in order of most visible to least visible, because the deeper into Manu Bay's temporary city I went, the more women doing interesting mahi I found.

The first person I ran into was Maia Barbuzza, with a big grin on her face, hanging her head out the window of the accreditation tent. I thought this was ironic because when Maia and I were 17, we spent one entire Saturday making fake Soundsplash bands out of ribbon from a $123 dollar store in Hamilton. (We got in on them, btw.)

Maia wears many hats in Whāingaroa, from surf instructing at Raglan Surf School's iconic red firetruck, to organising Sunday Sounds, the local pub's fortnightly open mic night. She was one of the first on site at Manu Bay every morning and one of the last to leave, spending each day making sure the right people could enter the right areas. By virtue of being located right at the entry, she was also the go-to answerer-of-questions for the crowds of surf fans who'd driven from all corners of Aotearoa to catch the pros, all while fending off hordes of local groms hustling her for a coloured band that would get them into the VIP area. She kept them busy by promising a free A4 printout of the event artwork if they brought her a dead crab.

Second was Keri, Host of the upstairs VIP area, who kept an excited crowd of NZ surfing legends, sponsors, Raglan locals, and Surfing NZ staff well hydrated and happy.

I didn’t manage to get a shot of her wearing one of her long fluffy trench-coats but her big smile and infectious welcoming spirit did the job.

A crowd favourite, Liv Kayes was the only woman on the water safety team, and the first female ski driver in the history of WSL water safety teams across Australia and New Zealand, a fact I only learnt after the event.

A few nights before finals day, over a beer at the pub, she excitedly told me she'd been promised the jet-ski victory run for the women's final. That meant she'd get to drive the event winner for a lap from the boat ramp to the top of the point, carrying them on the back of the ski.

And of course, that winner ended up being no less than Carissa Moore. I remember feeling so nervous for some reason: hoping Liv would be in the right place at the right time, and that mother nature would gift her a nice little lull to do it properly. It all aligned perfectly, and this image from Cory Scott captured it beautifully.

I've been friends with Nina for years, so I was completely unsurprised to see her getting stuck in when I arrived at the comp site. For the first few days I had no idea what her role actually was; I just always caught her power walking around like she was on a mission. When I finally got the chance to catch up with her, she told me her Raglan-based surf club (The Dames) had proactively organised a dishwashing station trailer, so WSL team meals could be served with regular plates and cutlery instead of single-use plastic. The trailer cost $1200, fundraised by Extreme Zero Waste and Kahu's Nest, the local Community Recycling & Resource Recovery centre.

Nina took me out the back, into the area where all the teams get fed, and it was there I found a team of eight local Raglan wāhine surfers smashing out hundreds of dishes. They ran a roster throughout the week, all working toward a shared goal of keeping the event as waste-free as possible, even sacrificing some of the most exciting finals day heats to do it. Maybe next year WSL will come on board and cover the cost of the trailer themselves, since they're all about sustainability? Wink wink.

Donning the red and yellows was Hannah Williams, whose role was part of the land-based lifeguard team, helping ensure the safety of WSL surfers and the public on the infamous rocks of Manu Bay. One of my favourite things to watch was her using local surf knowledge to help security guards predict which part of the rocks pro surfers were going to exit from, so they could run down to meet them and escort them back up. I reckon if there was a competition for the biggest frother at Manu Bay, Hannah would be up there for sure.

I also wanted to shout out one of the women doing amazing mahi I didn't get to catch up with. Kara Rickard jumped in the commentator booth for a few heats and introduced the world to our little corner of paradise in Aotearoa, sharing the story of the tangata whenua of Whāingaroa, and the history of the place these surfers from all around the world had come to.

Surfers who will return again to Aotearoa in 2026, hopefully alongside the amazing Kiwi wāhine who gave the atmosphere at Manu Bay that week a little bit of magic.