Surfing Championships Begin Today at Huntington Beach Pier

The largest surfing competition in the nation--the Ocean Pacific Pro Surfing Championships--starts today at the Huntington Beach Pier.

About 150 competitors are expected to participate, including all of the world’s top-rated surfers.

The contest was scheduled to start this morning at 6:30 and runs through Sunday. In today’s California trials, 96 men are entered and will compete for 24 places in Wednesday’s events. The world-tour trials will be held Wednesday, matching 40 competitors from Australia, South Africa, Japan and England against those advancing from today’s heats.

Wednesday’s competition will determine the surfers advancing to the main-event heats, which start Thursday. The men’s quarterfinals will be at 1 p.m. Saturday, with the semifinals scheduled for 7 a.m. Sunday, and the finals at 11:30 a.m.

The women’s trials begin Wednesday and finish Thursday, with main-event action also Thursday. Quarterfinals will take place at 1:30 p.m. Friday, the semifinals at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, and the finals at 11 a.m. Sunday. A longboard competition, in which surfers ride old-fashioned boards up to 10-feet long, also is scheduled for Sunday.

The top 30 finishers on last year’s men’s tour are scheduled to compete, including Tom Carroll of Australia, Shaun Tomson of South Africa, Mark Occhilupo of Australia, Tommy Curren of Santa Barbara and Cheyne Horan of Australia, who ended the 1984-85 season ranked first through fifth, respectively.

In the current standings, tabulated after a contest in France that ended Aug. 18, Australian Barton Lynch was the leader, followed by Occhilupo, Wes Laine of Virginia, Glen Winton of Australia and Hans Hedemann of Hawaii. Curren, ranked 20th after the French event, won the most recent contest on the tour last week in England.