Wedge Splits Lovers of Surf in Battle of Turf

The sign posted where Channel Road dead ends into a cluster of palm trees warns visitors of what might await them when the beach ends and the water begins at the place they call the Wedge:

REMEMBER

Hazardous and changing conditions may exist

It has been more than half a century since Newport Beach city officials extended the west jetty at the edge of Balboa Peninsula, unknowingly creating something of a monster of a surf spot. Once the last of more than 200,000 tons of rock was in place, a powerful, hollow wave was created, and a once-innocent pocket of the Pacific was converted into one of the most storied shorebreaks on the California coast.

The Wedge is 57 years old, but hasn’t mellowed a bit. Like the sign says, it can be quite hazardous, and ever changing. These are often troubled waters.

It used to be that the biggest problem for Newport Beach lifeguards was warning novice swimmers and body surfers of the dangers of the Wedge wave, which was known for plunging body surfers from the top of a 10-foot peak into water sometimes less than a foot deep. That threat hasn’t gone away, but has been joined by overcrowding. It seems nearly everyone but the stand-up surfer wants a piece of the Wedge, and it just wasn’t sliced big enough to go around. The lines have been drawn.

On one side are the body boarders, who have been popping up at the Wedge in increasing numbers over the last five years or so. On the other are the body surfers and knee boarders, some of whom have been catching Wedge waves longer than many body boarders have been alive, and feel that seniority ought to count for something. In the middle are the lifeguards, who have watched the scene get rather ugly at times.

Said Ken Jacobsen, chief of marine safety for Newport Beach: “They’ve had some physical confrontations down there between each other,” he said. “In the last three years, they’ve had some knockdown, drag-out fights.”

The summer months are the hottest, in terms of tempers and temperatures. This is the time of year when the Wedge is generally hit by the south swells that produce the biggest and most challenging surf. With kids out of school, it’s also the time of year the demand for waves is the greatest.

The Newport Beach City Council has tried to address the problem with a more stringent blackball policy designed specifically for the Wedge. The policy, Jacobsen said, works like this: From June 15 to Sept. 10, the blackball flag flies from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and no hard objects or flotation devices are allowed in the water during that time. Body surfers have the place to themselves. At other Newport beaches, the blackball usually flies from noon to 4 p.m.

Said Newport Beach body surfer Tom Kennedy: “It’s like getting a $10,000 car for two thousand bucks.”

But body boarders and knee boarders are left out in the sand.

“We just can’t seem to satisfy all of them at the same time,” Jacobsen said. “We don’t like to restrict anybody from the beach, but we have to use an element of common sense.”

Ron Romanosky is openly territorial when it comes to the Wedge. An avid knee boarder who has considered the Wedge his home break for more than 20 years, Romanosky may be the purest of the Wedge purists. He blames the body boarders for the conflict, and rejects the notion that they have as much right to the waves as anyone. “It takes about as much talent to ride a (body) board as it does to push a lawn mower,” he said. “It’s sacrilege. The Wedge is a sacred place to a lot of guys, especially me, because I’ve almost been killed there. You ride the Wedge because it’s a thrill, and that thrill is being diminished by the hordes of body boarders.”

J.P. Patterson, a professional body boarder from Huntington Beach, is part of the hordes. He’s torn between wanting to get in on the Wedge waves, and sympathizing with the plight of the veteran Wedge riders.

“It’s tough. . . . The knee boarders and the body surfers have had the place for so long,” he said. “They’re older guys. They’ve been there since they were kids, and now, here come these young punk body boarders just kind of taking the place over. Not only getting in the way, but showing them up. It’s a real blow to their egos.”

But Patterson said he has seen some body boarders demonstrate a lack of wave etiquette, and understands why Romanosky and other Wedge locals are upset.

“The kids over here have to learn to respect their elders and to respect the locals that have established their right to surf the place,” he said.

About the only thing everybody agrees about is that there are no easy answers. “It’s like putting a bowl of candy in the middle of a room full of children,” Kennedy said. “Everybody wants to dive in, and when they do, that’s when you have a problem. I really don’t see a solution.”