“The Twelfth Year at the Pier,” by Drew Kampion, SURFER, January 1971

On the beach, on the south side of the pier, heat number twenty-six was being announced. Four or five surfers, all in shiny black from ankle to wrist, crowded around the beach coordinator, getting instructions and trying to get their bright orange Topex helmets to fit. A surfer puts one on, and the coordinator sticks his clipboard under his left armpit and presses the surfer’s helmet down with his right hand. There is a sucking sound, and cold water runs out of the helmet and down the surfer’s neck. The coordinator snaps the chin strap as his clipboard worms loose and falls to the sand. It lands next to a paper label from Tack Wax, the official rub this time.

“All right, you all know the rules. High three waves out of five. Interference is being called by the judges, the ride will be circled on the score cards. If a majority of the judges gives an interference, you got it. You’ll have fifteen minutes to get your five waves. A sixth wave will automatically count, and so on.” He looked at the five surfers. “Any questions?” There were none. “OK then, there’s five minutes left on the heat in the water, so you’d better get your tails in gear and get paddling.” The five surfers scatter, find their boards, and paddle out along the north side of the cement pilings.

In the ready area, while the contest progressed in the water, the usual procession of surfing personalities occurred. Although the surf was fairly decent, running between four and six feet through varying tide conditions and generally tolerable winds, the action never succeeded in attracting a lot of attention from the throng on the beach. David got everybody excited on a couple of waves during his alternate elimination heat. He was riding where Rolf would have been if Rolf had showed. But Rolf was getting into his piano somewhere in the Palisades and hadn’t bothered to enter. David hadn’t either, but when Rolf’s alternate opening appeared, he got into it and rode very well. Weller than most, you could say.

On the beach, beneath the geometric steel judging scaffolds, the TV cameras scanned from atop their four- wheeled dollies, taking in all that was Huntington on the contest-of-the-year weekend. Looking over a cameraman’s shoulder, it was all told in shades of TV blue: there was less frolic, paraphernalia, and even less contestants than in previous years. From a TV viewer’s standpoint, the waves lacked the necessary spectacular juice that one expects when he tunes in Channel 5 to the surf show.

You could see that hair had begun to grow shorter. There was definitely a shift taking place. The surfers were giving up the purity of radicalism.

Thor Svenson was back from Tahiti, where he saw an Oxford-educated chief tame sharks, and where no one but the chief knew that General Electric had discovered electricity. Art Brewer was concentrating on shooting funky pictures, which meant very little in the way of surf shots. Margo was talking about having seen the light, and Jimmy Blears was looking for a ride back to Dana Point. Randy Lewis was bummed because there weren’t any waves in his heat. Bob “Hawthorne” Patterson was making an 8mm surf movie about the chicks on the beach, while his employer, Greg MacGillivray, shot stills and answered various questions from fans. Les Williams was hyperventilating for his heat. Later, there was a party at Chuck Dent’s. That was Saturday.

Huntington was parties and bars and motel rooms that night, and the people that had stood in the sun on the beach all day now found their reward in smoky rooms that warmed with crowds and talk and music as the night grew colder. The town was quiet and dark, except that if you took the streets one at a time, or knew where to look, you would come upon pockets of vibrating life and light where parties rocked on out. Elsewhere, all-night restaurants served up goodies for the munchies, and an occasional batch of rubber was laid down at a street light because some frustrated lowrider couldn’t find the party.

Sunday morning comes early to the Twelfth Annual United States Surfboard Championships at Huntington Pier. On the gray, damp sand, still pocked with the craters of yesterday’s feet, a knock-kneed midget pans the sand for silver. He rolls the sand around in a pan with a screened bottom, and carefully examines his take; three or four cigaret filters, a few stones, a couple of pop tops, a hair pin, a small red broken piece from a plastic toy (a fire engine?), a corn chip, half soggy with red sauce, and a piece of paper bearing the address of last night’s party.

Four kids arrive in a VW van, jump out quickly and start down to the sand, cutting through a row of recently watered shrubbery in which one slips and falls on his ass, covering himself with mud. The others laugh hysterically. “Did you see him fall?!” The knock-kneed midget, who has sat down in the sand with his legs surrounding the pan, glances up, perhaps wondering if anything might have fallen from the unfortunate boy’s pockets. Then his eyes scan the nearby parking lot filled with vans of all makes and colors. Between the midget and the sea there is a swarm of blackbirds covering the sand.

Things are popping in the ready area. The men’s semifinals are underway, and many of surfing’s biggest names are here, many surfing up to their reputations in the sectiony, semi-glassy and gray surf, which has dropped a foot or so overnight.

Cheer Critchlow surfs similarly to, and as well as he did at Malibu last year. Dale Dobson surfs as aggressively as always, and, as usual, has bad luck, getting caught inside after losing his board spectacularly. Dru Harrison showed once again his amazing backside ability, getting one unbelievably tight tube. Eddie Underwood graced a few zippering walls with his brand of excellence, and Tiger Makin displayed that positive punch and drive that makes him different than a lot of surfers. Jimmy Blears got five.

John Fain had a hard time in his heat, though he was frequently doing the right thing. George Szigeti had a good time. David didn’t make the cut. A new guy from New Jersey, Dennis Doyle, did. Along with Purpus, Mc- Caul, Corky, and Lopez.

The final men’s heat was a beauty. Peaks were forming in two places: up against the pier on the south side, and further down the beach a peak formed that eventually ran into the peak near the pier. Corky and Brad McCaul made for the peak down the beach, which so happened to be breaking exactly like Cotton’s Point on a good day, which is where Corky and Brad like to surf. The peak would angle in a bit from the south, suck out hollow with a honing left that soon arrived at a flattish shoulder that necessitated a cutback, a slow, flat pause while the second part of the wave hollowed, then a rocket ride into the final part of the wave that wrapped in close to the beach, the wave staying hollow, but growing smaller, and collapsing at the end in six inches of water. It was a perfect contest wave, and the moment Brad and Corky decided to ride it, they had the first two spots sewed up.

Gerry Lopez kept mainly to the regular Huntington Pier break, as did Mike Purpus and Dennis Doyle, who did very well, even though no one had ever heard of him before.

Gerry surfed beautifully and artistically, very composed the whole time. He was hurt in the scoring mainly because he had smaller waves. Purpus rodee nicely, but routinely, giving it a lot of gas where the wave had given up. He was hurt in the scoring mainly because he had short waves. Doyle rode impressively, combining good, solid surfing with spectacular surfing a la an occasional 360. He was hurt in the scoring mainly because his first name wasn’t Mike.

While they were out having their final, it was interesting to see how much surfing was still changing. Boards were very tiny, and no one seemed very competitive, and this was definitely a switch. It was the ultimate in ho-hum competition, which was nice. Mostly, everyone just surfed their own way, perhaps having given up after twelve years of trying to figure out what the judges were after anyway. So that if there was less tension, there was more fun.

Jeri Poppler finally won the women’s event after winning a lot of contests she never got credit for winning. Hal Sachs and Patty Young (wearing matching stars and stripes ensembles) downed all in the tandem, which was really neat because Hal’s such a bitchin’ guy and wanted the trip to Hawaii. But, back to our story . . . .

Dane Silzle ripped in the juniors and edged out Jon Van Ornum, who also ripped. Kit Horn, aged 40, beat out 22-year-old Corky in the paddle race just before the Dory race, which was a classic, with boats banging against the pilings and turning over and near misses and near hits. That’s always the one that gets folks charged up the best.

The music group was called The Rush, and even though they weren’t all that great, a lot of people were ready for them, so that when they took charge of the bandstand to provide a distraction while the awards ceremony was being put together, they not only took charge, but took over. The music and the image of the young, long-haired group on the stage was what the kids on the beach wanted after a day of regimentation and uniformity.

Earlier in the day, the preacher on the pier with his literature and his flag had said: “Jesus is the answer if you only knew it! He’ll put a smile on your sad faces!”

Now they were smiling and moving and coming alive. Every chick without a bra on stood up and thrust forward her nipples and lower lip. Any guy who was real dipped his head to the stammer of the beat. A very groovy couple epitomized the efforts of the crowd in a little space cleared down in front of the lead singer, who, in his blue denim overalls, ruled the moment with a peculiarly hostile version of “Try a Little Tenderness.”

The rock group had finally left the stage after great protestation from the audience. The blocks upon which the five finalists in each division would stand were arranged front and center on the stage. A high blue block in the center, a slightly lower red one to the right, white to the left, yellow to the right, and finally green to the left for number five, scarcely a half-foot above stage level.

Then there were the opening speeches, the mayor of Huntington Beach saying he and the community were right behind the surfers, especially now that there were getting to be so many of them. The MC took control and got a scattering of courtesy laughs for various inanities, along with a burst of appropriate rude comments. Then the queen, Ilona Liftschultz, was introduced, accepted a gracious peck from the MC, who then showed the new trophies, fashioned exclusively for the Huntington Beach contest by none other than Ed Schumpert, Surfer, Shaper, Sculptor, and began the presentations.

Corky got the Duke Kahanamoku award for the best all-around surfer and athlete in the affair for the fourth year running, to no one’s surprise When Brad McCaul left the stage with his Men’s Division trophy, Chuck Dent took it away immediately, squealed with delight, and had it put in his shop window. And it was all over for the twelfth time.

1970 United States Surfing Championships

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