Familiar Waters No Help as Australian Wins Surf Title

So much for local knowledge, home-cooking and the advantage of the big boys in their own back yard.

World-tour surfers Rob Machado and Dino Andino figured to be favorites in Sunday’s final of the Richie Collins Drug Use Is Life Abuse Surfing Championships. Both had advanced from the same semifinal where they had played a spectacular game of one-upmanship, taking turns eliciting appreciated hoots from the crowd by carving high-speed turns and wake-spraying cutbacks.

And they weren’t only surfing well, they were slicing up familiar waters. Andino, from San Clemente, and Cardiff’s Machado, who won the event here last year, have worked these waves before.

It was Mark Bannister--who lives halfway around the world in Narrabeen, Australia, and knows only that Huntington Beach is in “America”--who won the $4,000 first prize, however. He caught the two-biggest waves in the final and made the most of them, posting the only two scores 8.0 or above all day.

Bannister also proved that more is not better in professional surfing. Machado, who won $2,250 for second, and Andino, who took home $1,300 for third, each had six waves that were scored at 5.5 or higher. Bannister’s fifth-best wave was a 1.5. Only the top four scores are counted, however, so the Australian’s 8.3, 8.0, 6.1 and 5.4 were enough for the victory.

“A half-hour is plenty of time to get four waves,” said Bannister, who didn’t pick up a decent fourth score until there were less than seven minutes remaining. “I wasn’t too worried about that. But I was lucky on the best wave. It just sort of popped in front of me and I just let it come to me. I was able to stay relaxed and get in a rhythm.”

He snapped two powerful turns off the lip of the wave, sending up a fountain of point-getting spray, and managed to sneak in a few more maneuvers as he worked the wave toward the beach.

“That gave me the momentum,” he said. “Then I got another one right after that. Then it was just a matter of making sure I got another pretty good ride.

“This is a great win for me. It’s really hard to crack through and win in America. The waves are so much different to what we’re used to. But I think these are the best waves I surfed in America in the three years I’ve been coming here. Surely, they were the ones I enjoyed the most.”

After surfing in some of the worst waves of their lives on a rain- and wind-swept Saturday, the surfers arrived for Sunday’s quarterfinals to find a light wind and some decent three-foot peaks that improved as the tide came in.

Machado, who competed in his first two Assn. of Surfing Professionals world-tour events in Australia this spring, said he’s happy with the way he’s surfing and “just stoked to be in the final.”

“I think I had some great rides today,” he said. “I just wasn’t able to get that set wave that gives you the big score.”

The same could be said for Andino, who was the ASP rookie of the year two years ago. Andino used a Bannister-like approach to win his semifinal heat, slipping past Machado, San Juan Capistrano’s Shane Stoneman and Newport Beach’s Jeff Deffenbaugh.

With five minutes left, he had caught two waves worth 7.7 scores, but little else. He picked up a wave with less than two minutes to go and scored a 6.8 and then posted a 6.2 in the last few seconds.

“I knew I needed a couple of waves bad at the end,” he said. “I still thought I lost, but I never quit fighting and it worked out. But it’s pretty fickle out there and I got lucky in the semi and not as lucky in the final.”

Locals ruled the bodyboarding and longboard competitions, however. Brian Wise of San Clemente edged three-time defending champion Mike Stewart to win $1,500 and the bodyboarding title. And Huntington Beach’s Joey Hawkins won the longboard final and $1,000.