Big Wave Challenge, contest series announced by South Bay Boardriders Club
Derek Levy drops in at the Redondo Breakwall last January on his 25-year-old, 7-foot-6 Becker. Tyler Hatzikian (right) makes a smaller, but scarier drop at Hammerland last January on one of his own 10-foot boards. For both surfers, the big waves were their only rides that day. Photos by Daniel Farrell and Mike Balzer.
The surfer who is documented paddling into the biggest South Bay wave ridden this winter will be honored at the First Annual South Bay Big Wave Challenge awards dinner in April. The Big Wave Challenge is being organized by the South Bay Boardriders Club, which announced the contest this week. Prizes will include $1,000 and a Prime wetsuit from Body Glove. The winner will also be profiled in Easy Reader.
The contest period begins next Wednesday, Dec. 1 and continues through March 31, club member and surf photographer Mike Balzer said.
Entrants must present photographic or video evidence of their ride and the wave must have been caught between Indicators in Palos Verdes, on the south, and D and W Jetty in El Segundo, on the north.
The contest is modeled after the Billabong XXL Big Wave Contest. Though local waves don’t match the size of
Billabong’s 50-foot-plus winning waves, 20-foot waves are not uncommon at South Bay breaks such as the Redondo Breakwater, Hammerland in El Segundo and Indicators in Palos Verdes
The South Bay has a long history of big wave riders. In 1969, Hermosa surf shop owner Greg Noll was photographed on a wave at Makaha, Hawaii, estimated at 35 feet. At the time, it was the biggest wave ever ridden, and remained so for another 20 years. In the early 1970s, Mike Purpus and fellow Hermosa Surfer’s Walk of Fame inductee Tiger Makin were featured regularly in the surf magazines riding big waves at Sunset and Second Reef Pipeline in Hawaii. More recently, local surfers Ted Robinson and Alex Gray have established themselves as big wave, tow-in surfers. Gray competed for the Billabong title last winter with video of himself riding 30-foot plus surf at Ghost Tree in Monterey. Brad Gerlach, who recently moved to Manhattan Beach, won the Billabong Big Wave contest in 2005. His 68-foot wave at Todos Santos Island, off of Baja Mexico, earned him $68,000, a dollar for every foot of drop.
But despite these achievements, the South Bay has received little recognition in the surfing world since surfing’s “Golden Era” of the 1960s, when Noll’s, Hap Jacobs’, Dewey Weber’s and Bing Copland’s surf shops made Hermosa Beach the center of California surfing.
Balzer said he hopes the contest will provide recognition and encouragement to South Bay surfers. Photos and videos of the winter’s big waves and a group photograph of the competitors with their boards at the awards dinner will also add to the documentation of South Bay surf history, Balzer noted.
South Bay Surf Series
To further support local surfers, Balzer said, the South Bay Boardriders Club will host the South Bay Surf Series. The top point earners in the juniors’ and men’s divisions of the five-contest series will win surf trips to an Adventure Surf Trips camp in Nicaragua or El Salvador.
“Local kids will have the opportunity to compete without having to drive to Huntington Beach or Ventura,” Balzer said.
The first contest will be January 15 and sponsored by ET Surf. Dive N’ Surf, Pier Surf, Surf Concepts and Spyder Surf will sponsor contests over the four subsequent months.
For more information on the Big Wave Challenge and the Surf Series visit SouthBayBoardRiders.com. ER