Knee-Boarders Want to Keep Their Slice of the Wedge

Once again, a classic confrontation is shaping up on the Orange County coast. This time, it involves bodysurfers and knee-boarders at the Wedge in Newport Beach, where powerful south swells bounce off a rock jetty, creating huge waves that can tower 20 feet or more.

It seems that the bodysurfers just want it for themselves now, said Rockin’ Fig. But the water should be for anyone who wants to enjoy the ocean, and that includes surfers, swimmers, knee-boarders and bodysurfers.

What they should do is blackball the area, say, about 11 a.m. and after that time, only bodysurfers can enter the water.

Sounds fair, Fig. They blackball most beaches anyway when there are too many surfboards that can go flying and knock swimmers out.

Located immediately northwest of Newport Harbor’s entrance, the Wedge, according to Rockin’ Fig, has star power. It’s like that famous Hollywood drugstore: You check in at the Wedge on a big day while plenty of surf magazine photogs are snapping away, and chances are you can end up on the cover of a major mag.

Endorsements are just around the corner. You’ve ridden Big Wedge.

Fig said few people have managed to grab that brass ring. He mentioned Ron (Romo) Romanosky, a veteran Wedge knee-boarder, and Fred Simpson, a swim-fin designer in his 50s who has surfed the Wedge on a knee-board since 1960. And of course, Danny Kwock. Figgy and I both recall how Kwock, as a gangly looking teen-ager, gained a niche in Wedge lore by slicing up Big Wedge on a surfboard and made the cover of SURFER magazine. (Most guys knee-board the Wedge; only kamakazies would use a surfboard.)

What makes the Wedge so attractive is the sheer speed and acceleration. A steep, ledgy drop can zoom you from 0 to 30 m.p.h. in a matter of seconds, a sensation that one veteran lifeguard likened to being sprayed with a fire hose.

“You really fly,” Fred Simpson once said. “You are going so fast, it feels like you are unrolling your skin.”

Now, some bodysurfers who ride the Wedge with only swim fins have formed the Wedge Preservation Society and are proposing a ban on any flotation devices, a catchall phrase that includes all surfboards and knee-boards. The ban would allow only bodysurfers to attack the Wedge.

“They can’t compete with a guy on a knee-board who also has fins. They think that’s unfair, because those guys get most of the waves,” said Newport Beach marine safety officer Gordon Reed. “They don’t want any flotation devices of any kind. That means no boogie boards, rafts, surfboards or anything.”

The society has gathered signatures, and its proposal is being reviewed by the city’s Marine Department.

Bill Sharp, ex-editor of SURFING magazine and now president of Katin Surf Trunks, has been a devoted Wedge knee-boarder for 15 years. In a letter to the City Council, he argued it would be too costly for city lifeguards to enforce such a ban, especially when city services are being cut. (In 1988, city marine director David Harshbarger estimated that it cost $15,000 to enforce the no-hard-board-surfing regulation at 40th Street for 5 1/2 months.)

“I would think it hard to rationalize cutting back on other services just to allow a small group of beach-goers exclusive use of a popular public beach,” Sharp said. Stay tuned. But as my buddy Fig is always saying, There’s only so much beach, and only so many people can use it.

Surf ball: SIMA, the Surf Industry Manufacturers Assn., will have its fourth annual Waterman’s Ball on May 22 at the California Scenario Sculpture Garden in Costa Mesa. Tickets are $100 a person. SIMA hopes to raise $60,000 for three environmental groups: the Orange County Marine Institute in Dana Point, the Surfrider Foundation in San Clemente and the American Oceans Campaign, a group in Santa Monica formed by actor Ted Danson. The ball is black-tie, so wear the T-shirt with the boutonniere. For more information, call (714) 760-0784.

Anthology: “Paper Shredders,” a 66-page anthology of surf writing, has been published by Orange Ocean Press, Box 1328 San Clemente, Calif., 92672. It costs $8 at the Killer Dana Surf Shop, 24621 Del Prado, Dana Point, $10 if you order it from the publisher by mail.

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