Modified Pro Surfing Championship Catches a Mellow Wave

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 began Thursday and wraps up today with the men’s, women’s, junior’s and long board finals. This year’s competition included a record number of 54 women performers, more than twice as many as last year, out of about 400 surfers who entered the competition, Kingsbury said.

On Saturday, the mood was mellow in this 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 bikinis and others in slacks, hats and sunscreen to ward off the rays that finally broke through the gloom late in the day. Others toted video cameras poised to capture the stunts of their favorite surfing stars, and a few small children played in the surf.

Loyal fans mobbed former world champion and teen-age heart-throb Kelly Slater for autographs. Others paid homage to the long board 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.

The surfing bonanza, which features more than $70,000 in prize money, is a qualifying event for surfing’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.

Blake said crowds looked thin compared to previous years. Spectators used to line the pier free of charge, she said, but Saturday the pier was lined with the pricey bleachers. Bleacher seating was free during the week.

Blake also said that 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 fans.

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.

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

Times staff writer Jaime Abdo contributed to this story