Finals Day at Manu Bay starts before the sun clears the Waikato hills.
The surf check happens early. Contest officials walk the cliff above Manu Bay, watching the lineup. By the time the team assembles at the judges' tower, the question has been answered: the swell has period and size. The first heat of Finals Day was called for 7:35 AM.
Ten days of waiting, one week of compressed competition, and a fortnight of climbing waves and watching swell tracks shift across the Tasman — it has come down to this morning. The Championship Tour's first-ever visit to Raglan ends today.
What Is Left to Decide
Three heats run the remaining competition to a close. The women's final is set before the men's semifinals: five-time world champion Carissa Moore faces 2024 Rookie of the Year Sawyer Lindblad in a matchup that splits experience and raw momentum cleanly between them.
In the men's draw, reigning world champion Yago Dora faces Italo Ferreira — a Brazil-vs-Brazil semi that the tour's broadcast team have been building toward since the draw was made — while Griffin Colapinto and Morgan Cibilic meet in the other semi. Whoever advances from each heat meets in the final for the inaugural CT title at Manu Bay.
Moore's Road to the Final
Carissa Moore's place in the women's final is the product of what the broadcast described as the highest heat total of the 2026 WSL season: a 19.00. A 9.80 and a 9.20 on a Manu Bay left that was delivering its best performances of the event. The near-perfect round put a stamp on what Moore had been building all week — conservative where others overrotated on tighter sections, aggressive when the wall opened into something real.
Sawyer Lindblad reached her first final at Raglan on a wave that suited her precisely. The 2024 Rookie of the Year has been accumulating points through bold positioning at the start of rides, taking Manu Bay's point-break sections earlier than most of the field and riding closer to the critical zone on inside sections.
The stylistic contrast between them is genuine. Moore has won in New Zealand before. Lindblad is surfing the event of her year.
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Join ZealZagFollow us on InstagramDora's Perfect 10
Yago Dora's semifinal passage came via the first perfect 10 of the 2026 Championship Tour season, scored against Cole Houshmand in the quarters. The ride — a full-rotation move followed by back-to-back committed carves across a Manu Bay left that was running the full length of its best sections — did not look improvised. Dora picked the right wave, read it from the start, and executed from the back section through to the close-out.
The perfect score defines the event more than any other single moment. Manu Bay delivered a world-class wave when the world's best athlete was in position.
Dora's semifinal opponent, Italo Ferreira, arrived with his own form: a 9.0 ride in the quarterfinals and a record of performing on powerful point-break sections. The two Brazilians have met in this format before.
What the Event Delivered
When the Championship Tour announced Raglan as a 2026 venue, the surf media's reaction was a blend of vindication and long-delayed acknowledgement. Manu Bay has been a great surf-contest venue in waiting. The waves that arrived this week — and particularly the two days of excellent conditions that drove Dora's perfect 10 and Moore's 19.00 — confirmed that.
The first CT title at Raglan carries its own weight in the rankings. A trophy here represents category-one points in a year when the tour standings are close across the top bracket.
For the Northland extension — the next stop for athletes staying in New Zealand after the event window closes — see our Northland and Shipwreck Bay surf guide. For the earlier standby day, read our May 22 Raglan standby report.