I’m so beat right now! 5 days surfing my brains out and training on Kauai then into a contest which was held at Queens by the Christian Surfers in Hawaii. I was very reluctant as I haven’t entered a contest in over 20 years, don’t like sitting and waiting for a heat to surf 15 minutes, hate driving into Waikiki on a Sunday etc, etc, etc… To top it all off I was so burnt out from training and needed a day of rest… Quite a few of my friends were going so that pushed me over the edge to go…
I arrived at dawn to see perfect chest high sets peeling off at Queens… I paddled out on my new Prototype#5 9-6 SUP Fatso and got the feel of the wave before they started… My friends started showing up so I started to get into the vibe off the event and people around and the enjoyment meter started to rise… The waves were steady all day long and one thing is for sure… Queens has got to be one of the best longboarding waves on the South Shore of Oahu. It is a perfect little gem! All day long we were saying, “Look at that one! I hope we get those in our heat…” It was small but very nice…
After a couple more surfs at Canoes and Pops my heat rolled around. I was in the Masters SUP division for over 40 year olds. There was around 18 entrants. Enough for 3 heats to make it to the semi and finals. Only the first position in the heats go straight to the final while second and third go to the semi… We had the luxury of watching the first 2 SUP heats and saw what was looking good and bad… My friend Doug Lock absolutely killed it in the first heat with long nose rides, carves, switch stance cutbacks, spinners and a few paddle spins to boot… First place in his heat. Next up Brian Keaulana laid down some of the sickest stuff I’ve seen on a SUP. Heavy turns, nose rides, Helicopters etc… Hands down, winner of his heat…
After seeing what won heats I figured I’d just follow what they did. Well, I can’t surf like Brian K so I’d have to just try to get good waves and bust out the whole bag of limited tricks I got plus I had Todd Bradley in my heat with his 9-6" and he rips… Right off the bat I got a good wave… I nose rode it thru a nice fast section then a few carves into switch stance, spinner etc… I figured if it worked for Doug it should work for me… I got around 6 waves with 3 really good ones but everytime I was paddling back out Todd was on a good one too and ripping! In the end, I ended up winning the heat so I got to go straight to the final… I was starting to really feel tired so I was happy I didn’t have to do the extra surf even if the waves were good…
In the semi we watched Todd rip it up and Bobby Ah Choy get one the beach! He’s been doing SUP surfing since the 50’s! He advanced to the final at 60 something years old! Unfortunately he was so burnt out form surfing all day he passed on the final… So the 5 man final was set at 4 of us seeing who could beat Brian K! Hahahahaha! I mean, if you ever seen him surf SUP, you’d know what I’m talking about! Waves were still decent but I didn’t get the lined up ones I wanted which is the story of my contest life… To top it off, the wave of the heat which I was in position for reached me 5 seconds after the horn… Hahahaha!!! Of course Brian blew us all away with his unreal surfing… So it ended Brian Keaulana 1st. A guy named Corbin who got the best lined up waves 2nd. Doug Lock 3rd. Me 4th. Todd Bradley 5th and Bobby Ah Choy 6th.
More pictures to come but for now here’s a few…
Todd Bradley Carving…
Winner Brian Keaulana
Brian Keaulana took the 6th place trophy and gave his 1st place trophy to Bobby Ah Choy for his contribution
to Beach Boy Surfing which paved the way for all of us… A touching moment!
photos from www.hawaiianwatershots.com
In the end I was so happy I was part of this. It was fun hanging all day with the boys and surfing while waiting for our heat. Even Terry Chung from Kauai was in town and came to check it out. He videoed our heats and tried my 9-6… We talked design on future SUP’s while checking out all the boards… The positive energy of the entire day made it worthwhile… I got to surf with great people who rip! I think I may surf more contests that have SUP divisions… They are fun and the vibe is very positive and all day people are checking each others boards and trading design knowledge… On the drive home something occured to me… I was the only guy in that final that shaped my own board… Ahwoooooooooooo!!!
