South swell lifts Surf Bout

RICK FIGNETTI

The $75,000 Body Glove Surf Bout was held last week down at Lower

Trestles in San Clemente with a lot of the top guns flying in. The

contest did run into some stormy weather midway, and small surf at

first, but things changed and good surf prevailed at the end.

A south swell hit Friday, pushing the surf up to 4-6 feet with

8-foot-plus sets and rippable shape.

In the international final Saturday, South African David Weare was

blowing up, connecting some rights all the way across, throwing some

big hits, slashes and tail slides, and posting some big scores for

the win. Weare pocketed $10,000, along with 1,500 valuable World

Qualifying Series points. Second place went to two-time Aussie junior

champ Andrew Buchan, who was blasting it too all the way across, as

the two up-and-comers set the pace.

Retired World Championship Tour pro Pat O’Connell from Laguna

Beach was ripping all the way to the final, but just couldn’t find

the right waves in the end and settled for third. U.S. champ Rob

Machado from Cardiff also had some insane heats throughout the

contest, but couldn’t find the connectable ones and ended up fourth.

In the women’s Surfing Girl Pro final, it was the same

international scenario, with Brazilian Silvana Lima running away with

it, gouging the rights through the bay at Lowers to win $3,500. The

Australians were hot in pursuit, as Rebecca Woods finished second,

followed by Laurina McGrath in third and Jessi Miley-Dyer in fourth.

The National Scholastic Surfing Assn. held event No. 9 of the

Explorer season at the H.B. pier recently. The surf was sizable with

south and some west swells throwing sets a couple feet overhead at

times. Local standout Andrew Doeheny of Newport placed fourth in the

Explorer boys, with H.B.’s Johnny Thomas in fifth. In the Explorer

juniors, Huntington’s Allan Kincade took fifth with some jam’n rides,

and Newport’s Daniel Shea was sixth.

In the tough men’s division final, Chris Browman placed fifth.

Barry Deffenbaugh slashed some mean turns on a good-sized set to win

the masters, while Huntington’s Jason Haughey ripped to second in

seniors. Pat Schlick raced some fast sections to place second in the

super seniors and the Figster finished fifth for the old guys.

Surf City’s Sara Taylor put in a strong performance winning the

women’s division, with Japanese transplant Terumi Nakajima third and

Carly Myers fifth.

H.B. pier regular Shane Van Herk placed second in longboarding,

looking good on the home turf, or surf.

This weekend, the association heads to C-Street, Ventura for the

last regular-season event before the West Coast Championships at the

Huntington pier May 19-22.

The H.B. Pro-Am Surf Series is at Ninth Street this Saturday and

Sunday, which should mean some pretty good local turnout and

competition. The Western Surfing Assn. is at Oceanside Pier this

weekend too! Lots of stuff happening.

Good luck. Fig over and out.

* RICK FIGNETTI is a nine-time West Coast champion, has announced

the U.S. Open of Surfing the last 11 years and has been the KROQ-FM

surfologist for the last 18 years, doing morning surf reports. He

owns a surf shop on Main Street. You can reach him at (714) 536-1058.