The Rip Curl New Zealand Junior Surfing Team surfed through day one of the 2012 DaKine ISA World Junior Surfing Championship with a clean slate.
All six surfers safely progressed through to the second qualifying round at the event being held at Playa Venao, Panama..
In clean 1m waves, itwas the under-18 boys and under-16 boys that got their campaigns underway competing against 301 surfers from 31 countries around the world.
The day got off to a perfect start with Mount Maunganui's Mackenzie Christie winning his first round match up to progress through to the second round alongside Brazilian surfer Deivid Silva.
Christie posted 9.76 points out of a possible 20 to win the heat over Silva on 9.07.
He was joined by Gisborne's Korbin Hutchings and Mount Maunganui's Jordan Griffin who both placed second in their match ups, Hutchings behind Brazilian surfer Eilivelton Santos and Griffin behind the highly-touted Italian surfer Leonardo Fioravanti.
On Sunday, NZ suffered a narrow loss to South Africa in the SANZ Trophy.
The event is contested annually between the two teams in the build up to the World Junior Championship.
Both teams went into the final with six surfers each, however South Africa amassed 8890 points to NZ's 8720 once the finals were completed. After the SANZ Trophy, the team took part in the Olympic-style parade of nations through the streets of Pedasi.
Team captains Ben Poulter and Jayda Martin Fitzharris took the stage for New Zealand, while the team performed an impromptu haka.
The swell is expected to increase over the next three days with clean conditions forecast.
