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Saturday, March 3rd kicked off the new season of the West Coast Boardriders club in Huntington beach, featuring Huntington Beach, Ventura, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo, Southbay and Seal beach.
Casey Wheat, Ziggy Williams, and Chris Moreno started a clothing company called SOKFY - (Sport of Kings forever Young) which got them thinking about one of their t-shirts that said, "West Coast Board Riders Club". This was to pay homage to the local boardriders clubs from decades ago. Boardriders clubs are an enormous part of the Australian culture, it's a national sport and the competitions are televised with hundreds of clubs competing.
This season the divisions are 14 and under, 15-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50+ and a women's division. With the surf running in the 2-4ft range the competition would be fierce. Each team was stacked in each division with the 50+ kicking off the show at 8am! A cold morning with beautiful clouds above and a possible storm approaching. As the comp started we were going a bit slow. It wasn't until "The Titan", my new nickname for Sean "Purps" Hayes got a solid wave connecting with the lip several times and running up the beach for a score of 9.6 which doubled and became a 19.2 because he was our "double whammy" guy. This was the shot in the arm we needed as we won the division and went on to stay within striking distance.
With the 30-39 division turning in competitive scores as a squall rolled through bringing rain and wind making conditions a bit tricky.
For the 20-29 division, the surf was chopped up making things tough, we managed to stay in it, however. The surf improved a bit for the women's division giving them the opportunity to drop some solid scores. For the boys 14 and under, there was some serious competition and they did extremely well to finish in 2nd.
With the final division going in the water our club sat in 5th overall with 133 points and Huntington beach in 1st with 155 points. Everything was in the hands of our 15-19 yr old division. Wow did they deliver, starting with a 9.6 and then a 7 and our double whammy was a 7.4 garnering a 14.8!
When all was said and done, Ventura Boardriders had finished in 2nd place and Huntington beach finished 3rd as the Southbay took 1st. The top two qualified for the Jack's Pro Competition in Huntington Beach during the WSL event. Super stoked!! This was a major club effort and it showed. We also host the next event here in Ventura on May 11 at the Pipe. This is such an honor for our club! Thank you to all who support us. See you May 11th.
Story & photos by Brent Flaaten // @flykng
