Surfboards Built for Two : Couples Hang Twenty as Tandem Sport Resurfaces

Jason Peters swung his 94-pound female partner over his head and onto his shoulders with one graceful, seamless effort, then held her as she hooked one small foot around his arm and extended the other into a perfect point.

All this while riding a fast-moving, crashing wave onto shore.

“It felt incredible,” Peters said of the perfect tandem surfing lift, the “arrow,” that he and partner Mel Ferrer completed Sunday at the U.S. Team Trials at the San Onofre State Beach. “We hit it and it felt so solid. It was liberating. It as like we were on fire.”

But even better was learning that the Dana Point couple’s performance Sunday won them a trip to France along with four other local American couples to compete at the European Biarritz Surf Festival next July 18.

The tandem surfing event included eight teams, all doing breath-taking lifts to the cheers of a crowd of about 40 who braved the chilly December air.

The spectacle was proof that tandem surfing, an almost-forgotten art that combines gymnastics with wave-riding, is enjoying a rebirth in Orange County, where it was introduced in the 1930s by two local surfers. Now the American sport is about to be given international exposure.

Besides surfing for the European title, the five couples will introduce tandem surfing as a new sport to Europe, said Steve Boehne, 47, of Dana Point, who, along with his wife, Bari, 46, organized and helped judge the event Sunday. The two are the reigning tandem surfing world champions, and are considered the best tandem trainers in the U.S.

All eight local couples who competed Sunday were trained by the Boehnes. The other winners Sunday included Mark and Debbie Gale of Capistrano Beach; Bobby Friedman of Dana Point and Anna Shisler of San Clemente; and Chris and Steve Farwell of Costa Mesa. All of them are looking forward to showing off the American sport, they said.

The Boehnes will be the fifth couple heading for France because of their championship status.

“It’s a great opportunity to show the world something new and be a part of history,” Shisler said.

After hitting it big in the 1960s, the sport, which requires a larger than average board, at least nine feet, fell out of favor with the advent of shorter, more maneuverable boards that became popular with high school and college-age kids in the early 1970s.

“It got so that if you showed up on the beach with a long board, you’d be ridiculed,” Boehne said.

“They’d say, ‘You geek with the long board, get out of here,’ ” added John Taylor of Huntington Beach.

Taylor, 47, a former tandem surfing world champion, is credited along with the Boehnes with carrying the torch for tandem surfing to its present resurgence. All three began tandem surfing in their teens during the sport’s heyday in the 1960s.

In the past four years, with their encouragement, long board and tandem surfing teams and competitions have begun springing up in most beach towns in Orange County.

Boehne attributed tandem surfing’s comeback to the increasing popularity of long boards among surfers in their 30s and 40s who no longer have the incredible agility that short boards require, but want to keep surfing.

The die-hards brought the boards back to the beach despite the sneers, Boehne said, and as long boards started regaining popularity, so did tandem surfing. Now tandem is spreading to Orange County kids as young as 15.

Surfers compare the sport to pairs figure skating, but with the added challenge of gliding on an unpredictable burst of water.

Competitors are judged on wave-riding, presentation and the degree of difficulty of their lifts. Successful partners often include women who have gymnastics or ballet training. The men tend to be muscle-bound and the women petite.

The sport has always remained popular in Hawaii, where it began in Waikiki in the 1920s when “beach boys,” handsome young surfers hired by local hotels to entertain guests, would take female tourists out on the boards.

Santa Monica’s Pete Peterson and his friend Lorin Harrison, both now deceased, are credited with bringing the sport to Huntington Beach in the 1930s.

Most surfers said they loved the way the sport combines getting out into nature, tough training and a little romance.

“You have a lot of fun,” Friedman said. “Men with muscles and women in bikinis--what could be better?”