Mavericks is on!

[Frenchmillerlover]

COntest scheduled to start tomorrow morning! ANyone playing hookey and riding there?.. Rain could be in the forecast...

[beauregard]

Re: Mavericks is on!

If it clears I'll be there at 2PM.

[timmeh]

Re: Mavericks is on!


Here's a pretty good live webcam. You have to scroll your browser way to the right to see the movie.

http://www.mavsurfer.com/live_cam/

T.

[Frenchmillerlover]

Re: Mavericks is on!

Webcam is nice! If you go there u d better take some good binoculars, it's 1/2 mile off the coast!..

[Frenchmillerlover]

Re: Mavericks is on!

So did anyone go?

Surf's up, and dangerous Mavericks is on

Thu Mar 3, 6:30 AM ET   Sports - USATODAY.com

By Janet Kornblum, USA TODAY

Under pale blue skies, facing an expanse of frigid Pacific waters, perilous boulders and a distant beach, Brock Little slides down the face of a monster and it spits him out through the other side of the foam.


So begins Wednesday's Mavericks Surf Contest, some 20 miles south of San Francisco. The contest is considered by many to be the toughest in the world.


It's easy to see why, with surfers barreling directly toward jagged rocks in great white shark habitat, 56-degree water temperatures and waves racing like three-story buildings at 35 mph before they curl over and break in a reverberating crash.


For five hours, 27 surfers, some of whom flew in for the contest from across the globe on 24 hours notice, took waves that averaged 30 feet and at times topped 40 feet. Tens of thousands of spectators lined the beach and cliffs a half-mile from the break, straining to see with naked eye or binoculars.


Russ Swindell, a 32-year-old political aide, flew in from Raleigh, N.C., as soon as he got word that the contest was on, arriving at 1 a.m. and spending the night in his car. He took a charter boat to watch the contest from just yards away in surging surf.


He said it was absolutely worth it: "You don't get to see waves like this and this kind of talent during the year - during your lifetime."


But it takes more than talent. It also takes a certain type of bravery bordering on insanity to plunge over the lip of a giant. Surfers fly down steep faces, sometimes tumbling out of the wave and getting tossed like laundry in the spin cycle and then pinned under tons of churning water. Surf leashes, which can lead a surfer to the surface when he's caught several feet under the surface not knowing which way is up, also can get snagged on the rocks below.


At least two boards broke during the contest, cracking like a frozen chocolate bar, but there were only minor injuries reported during the day. In 1994 Hawaiian big wave surfer Mark Foo, considered one of the best, died in these waves.


Wednesday's winner, Anthony Tashnick, got $25,000, and second- and third-place finishers Greg Long and Tyler Smith took home $8,000 and $6,000, respectively.

[Katie]

Re: Mavericks is on!

I tried really hard to get out of work to go, but just couldn't pull it off. :'(
I heard it actually turned out to be quite a day!

[Frenchmillerlover]

Re: Mavericks is on!

Hey Beau (and other bike & waves riders) I thought u d like this one (from this morning big front page of the SJ mercury News)

Santa Cruz surfers at the peak

EASY RIDERS

By Ken McLaughlin

Mercury News


Hang out with the surfer dudes from Santa Cruz and you'd never suspect they're world-class athletes.

They heckle each other and shovel out sarcasm. Sometimes they even slap each other around -- just for fun.

It might look like horseplay, but it's also what makes them great. In a solitary sport, about two dozen Santa Cruz big-wave surfers have forged a sense of community and mutual support that has pushed them to the peak.

As the Mavericks Surf Contest showed earlier this month, this close-knit group of childhood friends is shaking up the brave new world of monster-wave surfing -- where riders use jet skis and 5-foot-8 boards to catch six-story waves once thought beyond the reach of mere mortals.

Santa Cruz surfers are now clearly in the same league as those from the traditional home of big-wave surfing -- the North Shore of Oahu. Indeed, Santa Cruz could easily be called the ``North Shore of the Mainland,'' a cold-water surfing mecca that has surpassed the surf breaks in Southern California made famous by movies and Beach Boys songs.

``When we grew up together, we were always giving each other grief,'' said Peter Mel, 35, a Santa Cruz surfing legend. ``But in the water we've always pushed each other as a group to make sure everyone is staying at the same level.''

Amid the jokes and the jabs on land and in the water, they critique each others' rides, share techniques and discuss how the waves are breaking. It's the kind of stuff baseball players tell each other in a dugout -- but no one else.

``I don't know of any other place that has the same kind of vibes that we have,'' Mel said.

The group celebrated again when one of its youngest, Anthony ``Tazzy'' Tashnick, 20, won the $25,000 first prize at Mavericks, the Half Moon Bay contest that is quickly becoming the biggest big-wave surfing competition in the world. All told, the boys from Surf City snagged four out of the five top spots.

Tashnick's mentor and friend, Darryl ``Flea'' Virostko, took home the previous three Mavericks trophies. But a nagging knee injury kept him out of the contest this year.

Recent mainstream hit surfing movies such as ``Riding Giants'' and ``Step Into Liquid'' are helping to make stars of Santa Cruz big-wave surfers such as Mel, Tashnick, Ken ``Skindog'' Collins, Richard Schmidt, Josh Loya, Ryan Augustine, Shane Desmond and Shawn ``Barney'' Barron. The A-list also includes Virostko's brother, Troy; Zach Wormhoudt and his brother, Jake; Tyler Smith and his brother, Russell.

If there's a sports analogy for what these guys do, it's bull riding. You can't ``out stout'' a bull, the cowboys say. And, say surfers, you sure as hell can't overpower a big wave. So it's about how you manage to stay on it.

``We all have a huge respect for the ocean,'' said Zach Wormhoudt, 35. ``Basically, we're specks of dust in the way of a tidal wave.''

The Santa Cruz crew started out playing in the spindrift at Cowell Beach, near the wharf. They grew up going to the same Westside schools, Bay View Elementary, Mission Hills Junior High, Santa Cruz High. Today, when they're not grappling with the monsters at Mavericks, they live on Steamer Lane -- a slice of surfer heaven off West Cliff Drive.

``They've all been together ever since they were kids,'' said Flea's mom, Marilyn Trimble. ``And now they're all traveling the world, still footloose and fancy free.''

Some more free than others.

``I'm not married like the rest of them,'' noted Flea, 33. ``I can do basically what I want, and they can't.''

[Frenchmillerlover]

Re: Mavericks is on!

.. second part of the article

Flea often flaunts his bad-boy rep. Indeed, Vanity Fair magazine once dubbed him ``the Tommy Lee of surfing'' -- Lee being the famously unhinged drummer for the rock band Mötley Crüe.

Friends, though, say Flea and the rest of the Westside crew are more fun-loving than addled.

``It's like a peanut gallery, and the comedy is non-stop,'' said Dave Nelson of Santa Cruz, who travels the world photographing the guys.

Surfing has defined their lives, but the group is also remarkably diverse.

Some barely made it out of high school. Others went on to college and successful careers apart from surfing. Zach Wormhoudt is a landscape architect and one of the best skate-park designers in the world. Jake, his brother, is a software engineer for Santa Cruz-based LightSurf Technologies.

Whether they have a profession or work on a yard crew, surfing usually comes first. Being self-employed is wonderful, Zach Wormhoudt said, because he can adjust his lifestyle to the size of the surf.

``For most of the guys, nothing will stop them from being out there on a great day with the exception of injury or a death in the family,'' he said.

The top surfers are rewarded through a combination of stipends and travel allowances from clothes manufacturers like Quiksilver and other corporate sponsors, money from photo shoots, prize money.

``We make a great living,'' Flea said. ``Good enough.''

Enough to buy his own house on the Westside. Enough to never have to go to the office.

``They say that what you do for a living isn't work if you enjoy it,'' Loya said. ``So I guess I've never had a real job in my life.''

Peter Mel agrees. In his spare time, though, Mel helps run his dad's business, Freeline Design Surfboards on the Eastside, which has also produced some world-class big-wave surfers -- notably the late Jay Moriarty. He died in 2001 while free-diving in the Indian Ocean.

Warmhoudt, like all big-wave surfers, scoffs at the notion that he and his surfing buddies are death-defying thrill-seekers.

``I approach the waves in a calculated way,'' he said. ``I don't act recklessly.''

He and his friends say they do what they do for the same reason millions of other surfers surf: the camaraderie, the spiritual connection with the ocean, the pure fun, the fact that it's a beautiful sport to pass on to your children.

Wormhoudt's mother, Santa Cruz County Supervisor Mardi Wormhoudt, still worries about her grown sons' safety. ``But to me the worst thing would be having a kid with no passion,'' she said.

Flea's mom couldn't agree more. ``They're the best of buddies, living out their dreams,'' Trimble said.

[Frenchmillerlover]

Re: Mavericks is on!

If it clears I'll be there at 2PM.

Should be on TV today:

Mavericks Surf Ventures, in association with Bolt Media, announced today that NBC Sports will broadcast this season's edition of the world-famous Mavericks Surf Contest(tm) on April 24, 2005 at 4pm ET