A Sunshine Coast surfer who taps into her creative senses when she is in the water and on land is continuing to ride a wave of success.
Kathryn Hughes is Australia’s number two longboarder, known for her signature drop-knee move and colourful hand-painted surfboards.
It hasn’t always been an easy ride for the passionate surfer who grew up learning to navigate the world with very limited hearing.
She is deaf in her left ear and only has 60 per cent hearing in her right ear, believed to be caused by meningitis, which she contracted at just nine days old.
Affectionately known as ‘Kat’, the 30-year-old from Moffat Beach first fell in love with the ocean at the age of seven when she would go to the beach with her father, Mark, and watch him surf.
“I used to go to the beach a lot with my family and my dad surfed,” she said.
“He joined a longboard club and I went along with him every time he went to the beach.
“I started to say, ‘hey dad, I want to have a go.”
Like a duck to water, she found her feet on the board.
She recalled when she would skip school to catch a few waves.
“I remember, I was like 16 (and) surfing every day, skipping school. My dad would just come to school and get me out of school and take me surfing.”
Making a name for herself locally, nationally and internationally, she first joined the World Surfing League’s World Longboard Tour in 2015 and finished second in the competition in 2016.
Ms Hughes is also known for mastering the typically difficult drop knee manoeuvre, where the back knee is bent inward and lowered during a cutback turn, with the kneecap sometimes dropping all the way to the deck of the board, just behind the front foot.
“It’s a quite hard manoeuvre to do but somehow I just click in with it.”
“I also do the reverse cutback as well – with the left leg over the back of your right foot and then switching back into normal regular foot stand.”
She is creating waves on land as well, with her artistic surfboards, showcasing the natural creative flair she developed long before she began to surf.
“I was always creative when I was very little girl,” she said.
Apparently, I would draw in my mum’s books and draw on the walls and I think I realised that I wanted to do art on surfboards at around age of 10.
Using markers known as Posca pens, Ms Hughes prepares the board, draws her designs and seals the finished product.
“It’s inspired by the environment. If I go out to Moffat’s I’ll look back and I’ll look at the trees and all of a sudden I’ll just get this idea in my head.
“I don’t know, it just comes to me and I guess that’s really special.”
Kat spoke of her challenges growing up.
“When I was five … my parents found out I was deaf,” she said.
“They think (the meningitis) caused my left hearing to fail so my left hearing doesn’t work at all.
“I can only hear vibrations in the left ear, so if you’re talking to me on the left side I won’t hear a thing.
“It’s out of order and I’ve got a tattoo behind my ear that says, ‘out of order.”
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Growing up, she regular attended hearing and speech therapists, using different devices to help with her hearing.
Today, she uses an inner ear hearing aid that gives her 80 per cent hearing in her right ear.
Regardless of the adversity, she had never let her hearing interfere with her surfing.
“I can hear everything just as well as everyone else, I usually just use my eyes a bit more. “I’ve just learnt to get used to it.”
Having won back-to-back Queensland titles and the recent Winter Classic at Alexandra Headland, she is yet to decide her future plans with most international competitions still on hold.
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“At the moment I’m just cruising and surfing everyday,” she said.
“I’m currently deciding whether to go back to competition next year or not.
“I’m not sure with what’s going on in the world at the moment.”
In the meantime, she is doing landscape and garden work with her father and sells her hand-designed boards on Marketplace, by word of mouth and through her sponsor, Classic Malibu. Find her on Instagram @kat_hughes.
