Zander Venezia

WASHINGTON: A promising young professional surfer has died at the age of 16 while catching a wave in Barbados during Hurricane Irma, the World Surf League said.

Zander Venezia, a native of Barbados, reportedly fell off his board and hit a shallow reef at a beach called Box by Box, it said. He and other surfers were riding a swell generated by the Category Five hurricane.

Speaking to the magazine Surfline, fellow surfer named Alan Burke said: "Zander was bleeding, and he wasn´t moving. They tried to get him to the beach quickly, which was very difficult.

"Box by Box is a tough place to get in and out of, even if you have the ability."

The son of a surfer, Venezia won the Rip Curl Grom Search in the Outer Banks in North Carolina in mid-August, and in April he won the National Scholastic Surfing Association regional championships.

The Barbados newspaper Nation News called Venezia one of the island´s most promising junior surfers.