Alert Annette, Frankie! The Hot-Doggin’ Longboards Are Back

Their load considerably lightened, longboard surfers are the new wave for the first time in more than 30 years.

Once dreadfully heavy and impossibly unhip, longboards have been rediscovered. Call the new ones Longboards Lite; the once-30-pound wooden monstrosities now weigh half as much. These days, longboards are made of Styrofoam coated by Fiberglas.

They’ve prompted older surfers to return to the water and have become an ideal starting board for pre-teens.

“Longboarding is back; it is the rebirth of cool,” said Craig (Bear) Woznick, 41, a certified public accountant from Newbury Park who longboards with his four children.

Cool will rule April 29-30 at the California Beach Party Longboard Surfing Championships at Surfer’s Point Park east of the Ventura County Fairgrounds in Ventura. About 200 longboarders in seven age divisions will compete in the event, which has been held annually since 1989.

The competition brings to the beach surfers whose friendships go back more than 30 years. Bill (Blinky) Hubina, 51, began surfing in Ventura in 1958 when longboards were the only boards.

“At my age, I can’t go out on shortboards and compete with the kids,” he said. “But, gosh, the new longboards are great. They are light and maneuverable, a pleasure to use.”

Not that original longboards never see the water. A popular event for surfers and spectators is the Old Log contest, which requires longboards at least 25 years old that are at least nine feet long.

Bring out the heavies.

“Guys are going to dig them out of their attics,” Hubina said. “They were made to do nose-riding, getting your toes over the nose. That’s hanging-10. We’ll see some amazing things in the Old Log contest.”

And afterward, old and new friends alike can sit on the beach and talk about it. That’s half the fun, Woznick said.

“This competition is a chance to meet surfers and trade lies about big days,” he said. “We are like a tribe. The competition is about friendship and it gives you a reason to push yourself.”

The championships are open to all amateurs. Deadline for entry is April 14 and the fee is $35, checks made payable to City of Ventura.

Information: Betty Elder, 805-644-2678.

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Growing up in sunny Southern California offers many athletic opportunities. One of those opportunities is not the luge.

The closest we get to careening pell-mell down a slick chute is Raging Waters. But a chute slick with ice? Caked in snow? Frigid winds playing havoc with the sled?

Maryann Baribault, junior world champion, has conquered it all. She has competed all over Europe, winning the World Cup circuit last winter, and in February won the world championship in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Baribault, 16, lives in La Canada-Flintridge and is a junior at Flintridge Prep. She is home, thawing out and studying up, before the U.S. junior luge team begins another season in October.

“It’s really hard for me to do schoolwork on the road, so I have a lot of catching up to do, especially writing papers,” said Baribault, who had a laptop computer and a tutor with her during the team’s winter travels. “It’s like I have two families, two separate lives.”

If her lifestyle sounds like a first, it is in more ways than one. Baribault is the first American girl to win the junior world championship. She also plans on being the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in the event.

Her times currently have her ranked fourth among American women. The three women ahead of her compete on the senior circuit. Three women from each country will qualify for singles competition in the 1988 Winter Olympics, to be held in Nogano, Japan.

“I want it real badly,” Baribault said. To accelerate her progress, she might compete in seniors events next season even though she can remain a junior until she is 20.

Acceleration is the key to success in the luge. Races last less than 40 seconds and can be decided by a one one-thousandth of a second. Baribault won the junior world title in a combined time of one minute 17.595 seconds in two races, more than a half-second better than the second-place time, an eternity in this sport.

Baribault ascended to prominence seemingly as quickly as she slides down a course. She started luging at 11, following in the tracks of her brother, Paul, a Stanford student who quit the sport a year ago.

“She wanted it all along,” said Baribault’s mother, Susan. “I don’t know how you could push your child to do something like this.”

Within a year, Maryann was featured in the Faces in the Crowd section of Sports Illustrated for being the youngest girl to make the U.S. junior team.

It’s been all downhill from there.