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The Johnny Appleseed Surf Tour…Part 3 Feeling an urge to talk
story..........once again dealing with the first contact of West/East U.S.
surfers in the summer of 1966. As my older readers may recall, I had just become
the champion of New Hampshire surfing and possible party innovator, all moments
that I will forever cherish. I'm traveling with two brothers from the Monmouth
Beach Surf Shop and our next stop is the contest at Seaside Heights, New Jersey.
As far as I know, this contest was a first in several aspects. It was the first
time that the best It was also the first time that I actually went head to head against Dewey Weber. This is the guy that everyone was trying to emulate in the sixties and I used to ride behind him at Malibu as a 14-year-old kid just to watch what he was doing. I always tried to surf like Dewey. He knew I was copying him and as I got older and started getting better there was always a bit of competition between Dewey and me at Malibu. I liked to whip turn as much as he liked to whip turn. However, I never did the stiff right arm thing. In five years surfing Malibu, up till this summer, I had never gotten more than a nod from Weber. Well, this contest changed that. It was also one of the two contests in my career that I felt was judged in a political manner..........and the outcome did not reflect the respective performances of the contestants. But what a great exhibition for eastern surfer wannabes. Gary Propper and Claudie Codgens were there as the best of the East. There must have been at least 500 onlookers to witness this spectacle. The surf at Seaside Heights was basically glorified shore break that was head high.....max. The largest waves were pretty much top to bottom, offering little time for anything but a quick turn and a single trick or kickout. The medium waves were better shaped and allowed us some room to work our magic. In this contest, I must humbly say, I was ON. The whole contest from beginning to end, my board and I made no mistakes. Here's a picture that I borrowed from an old Surfer showing a Seaside wave to give you some perspective......
I kept things reined in for my first heat. A couple of whip turns into noserides, a noseride spinner. I also got a monster kickout going backside. My favorite kickout is the backside, reverse 360-degree, flyaway. This is done by planting your back foot while going backside (left for me) and doing a hard 360 to the right, while falling away from your board. This creates an explosive thrust that makes your board blast out of the wave to the left. You can get the board to fly 6 feet out of the water. I also had a variation that I developed that allowed me to do the 360 as a tight vertical spin that caused the board to also come around nearly vertical. So at the time for the kickout I would spin in the opposite direction, meet and catch the board as it came around and paddle back out, all in one motion. A high scoring move to end a wave. This one I saved for later. I won my heat easily. So did Dewey, so did Propper, McRoberts, Codgens, Shaw. In the semis, I drew the East Coast version of Corky Carroll...........Hobie's own Gary Propper. There must have been something in the resin that Hobie was using .............to produce these insufferable brats. Propper came with a rep for being a snake and he showed why in his heat and in the semis. Unfortunately, I ended his journey to the finals. Pity! We even got our picture in Surfer for a wave in the semis............and in typical Surfer fashion the reporting was a tad Hobie biased. Here's the picture, followed by the real story...........
I had just finished with a backside, backward head dip, followed by a 360 kickout. I was paddling out and saw Propper and this other guy stroking for a medium set wave. Well, Propper stuffs this guy with a fade and then went to the nose for one of his cheater fives. Some of my Malibu training must have kicked in because I decided that the snake needed snaking. I whipped around and caught the wave just as Gary was arriving and pulled a backward turn. You saw the picture. Did you see the caption. Bull feathers! The go behind didn't happen. Propper came up on the high side to try a go behind. I completed my turn, but stayed backward facing him. He was right at my waist. I placed both of my hands in front of his feet blocking the view of the judges and held that pose. Propper looked down, saw what I was doing and apparently lost concentration, as his fin decided to release. I still remember the shocked look on his face as he spun out and disappeared into the white water. I turned back around, ran to the tip and ended the wave with an island pullout. I believe that wave placed me in the finals. And Propper, not. The finals featured Dewey, McRoberts, Codgens, a couple of others that I no longer recall and myself. Hell, I pretty much only remember it as Dewey vs. Me. My final was flawless. I matched Dewey whip turn for whip, drop knee for drop knee, noseride for noseride. But I also threw in another backwards bottom turn, had a noseride spinner, and two perfect, tight 360 backside pullouts that were the smoothest I'd done. I was very pleased with my work and could see a definite scowl on Weber's face. As we exited the water, there was no joy in the Weber camp and Dewey had his head down and everyone that I saw on the beach told me I had won, hands down. Of course, I didn't see any judges on the beach. Guess what? Dewey won the $100, I received a lovely trophy for second place. Right after the awards Weber came up to me and in a low voice told me that his people had told him that I should have won the event...........he then congratulated me and walked away with that little grin of his and his new $100. That was the only bone Dewey ever really threw me, but from then on we shared waves at Malibu fairly equally. I miss you Dewey, you made me a better surfer. This contest helped spark the surfing craze on the right coast and for me it told me that I could finally ride with the best. Next up we caravan down to Virginia Beach where we were greeted by some real waves (8-10 feet).
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