All the Action’s on the Waves as Op Pro Surf Fans Chill Out

Despite mostly gloomy skies, about 25,000 people flocked to Huntington Beach on the first weekend day of the 13th annual Ocean Pacific Pro Surfing Championship, but the event that once earned distinction as the city’s biggest beach party this year lured a more sedate crowd.

“I think you’re seeing the hard-core surf fanatics out there, and that’s what this event is all about,” said Op Pro spokesman Mike Kingsbury. “It’s not a beach party anymore. It’s a surf event, and that’s the crowd we’re really marketing to.”

The surf contest that boasts more competitors than any other in the world and drew major sponsors began Thursday and wraps up today with the men’s, women’s, juniors’ and longboard finals. This year’s competition included a record number 54 women performers, more than twice as many as last year, Kingsbury said.

On Saturday, the mood was mellow in the security-sensitive beach town, where city officials have described the surfing competition as a chance to improve an image tarnished by Fourth of July disturbances two years in a row.

Onlookers dotted the bleachers and packed the beach, some clad in skimpy bikinis and others donning slacks, hats and sunscreen to ward off the rays that finally broke through the gloom late in the day. Others toted video cameras and poised their camera lenses to capture the stunts of their favorite surfing stars, and a few small children played in the surf, oblivious to the competition taking place on the waves in front of them.

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Loyal fans mobbed former world champion and teen-age heart-throb Kelly Slater for autographs. Others paid homage to the longboard surfing legends of years gone by, and cheered the couples who performed acrobatic feats during a tandem exhibition, the first ever featured at the Op Pro contest.

“I grew up around surfing. This is the happening event in Huntington Beach,” said 28-year-old Mendi Blake, who attended her first championship 13 years ago as a young surfer star struck by all the big names.

“I just wanted to see all the old guys from when I used to subscribe to Surfer magazine,” she said, keeping an eye out for Op Surf stars Peter Townend, Corky Carroll and Herbie Fletcher. “Out of all the Op Pros, I’ve probably missed four. I’ve been here from the very beginning.”

The surfing bonanza, which features more than $70,000 in prize money, is a qualifying event for the sport’s U.S. Open, which starts here Tuesday and is the first Assn. of Surfing Professionals world tour competition on the U.S. mainland since 1991.

Saturday’s event was marked by choppy two- to four-foot swells that made for some rough surfing, and a few complaints from beach-goers angered at a first-ever $5 charge for bleacher seating that organizers say will help offset the cost of the competition.

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Blake said crowds looked thin compared to previous years. Spectators used to line the pier end-to-end free of charge, she said, but Saturday the pier was instead lined with bleachers that cost $5 to sit in. Bleacher seating was free during the week.

“I’ve never paid before. This is our beach. We pay taxes!” complained Blake’s friend, Alison Villegas, 28, of Huntington Beach.

Blake said wimpy waves around the Huntington Beach Pier have earned it the dubious nickname of “Lake Huntington” in surfers’ circles for years, and by her standards, Saturday’s swells were definitely not pumping.

But Kingsbury said contestants could still pull multiple maneuvers on a wave, and after Slater wowed onlookers with his “patented aerials” he was bombarded by autograph-hungry teen-agers.

The sun broke through the haze by mid-afternoon, and city lifeguard Capt. Bill Richardson estimated 20,000 beach-goers were watching the competition from the sand and 5,000 more filled the bleachers.

“We came to see the tandem surfing. I’m stoked they put that in there this year,” said Jeff Loftis, 26, of Huntington Beach.

“We could use a swell,” he added, as he sized up the water--gray from cloud cover and choppy from an offshore breeze.

The surfing championship has worked hard to recover from its own negative image: In 1986, hundreds of beach-goers went on a rampage, pelting police officers with rock and bottles and overturning and burning police cars. At least 12 people, including five Huntington Beach police officers, were injured.

But officials have tightened security at the event and organizers changed the format and marketing to lure a more dedicated surfing crowd, Kingsbury said. Last year, they moved a bikini contest, the flash point of the 1986 unrest, to a weekday, and this year they eliminated it altogether.

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Other than one fight late in the day off Main Street that drew dozens of onlookers, police reported no problems.

“They’re trying to make it low-key, and if this is any indication, it worked!” said Jackie Chenelia of Huntington Beach, who came to cheer on her daughter, surfing star Tricia Gil. “I’d rather see it like this than with 90 million 20- and 25-year-olds running around. They get too wired.”

Heidi Merrick, the 18-year-old daughter of surfboard shaper Al Merrick, has been coming to the events since she was 5 years old.

“It used to be crazy. I’m glad that it’s mellow now because I’ve grown out of it,” she said.

For Aaron Pai, owner of Huntington Surf and Sport, a more dedicated surfing crowd meant bigger sales. He had already sold “well over a thousand” T-shirts and anticipates doubling that by the end of the U.S. Open next weekend.

“It’s going crazy,” he said. “It’s like night and day compared to last year.”

At Perqs Sports Bar and Niteclub on Main Street, owner Gary Mulligan said the tenor of the event has definitely changed.

“The crowd’s more conservative. . . . Business is better, there’s just no violence,” he said. “I think our town’s maturing a little bit.”

Times staff writer Jaime Abdo contributed to this report.