After training and competing all around the planet, it was much closer to home where the biggest win of the season, and his career so far, happened.
At the Boardmasters event in Newquay in August Lukas won both the junior and open categories.
“It was the best day of my life,” he said.
A fifth place in Lacanau, France, followed and for a time he was leading the World Surf League’s Qualifying Series (QS), external, like all waves, the ride was not to last forever.
He called his next outing, a first-round defeat in Anglet, France, “the hardest loss this year”.
The European based QS tour consists of six events, with the highest ranked competitors making it onto the Challenger Series, which in turn feeds the top level Championship Tour.
It was Lukas’ first time in the QS and he called the experience a “rollercoaster”.
“I knew it was going to be tough but not so draining mentally and physically and I will come back a lot stronger next year.”
After a reset in the Kelly Slater wave pool in the US where he was able to surf with some of the best in the world, he came second Donegan again in the Rip Curl Grom Search European final in France, against the best of Europe’s young surfers.
But with a wild card into the Grom Search world final in Bali, which he won last year, he “surfed a lot smarter” and won again, pipping Donegan to second.
“There was one minute left, I just turned and went for broke, got an air and stuck it and I was screaming, I was so happy,” he said.