A Double Whammy of a Contest
Hey, it’s springtime, and that means plenty of surfing activities, including the Katin Team Challenge contest, which, according to Rockin’ Fig, is one of the longest-running fun events on the West Coast. It will be held Friday through Sunday in Huntington Beach.
Fig, how long has the Katin been held?
It was started by Walter and Nancy Katin in 1965. They were the people behind Kanvas by Katin, one of the first manufacturers of surf trunks.
It will be the pier, right?
Oh, yeah, right on the north side of the pier. The contest features individual and team formats. If anybody has seen a tag-team event, you know how exciting that is. Each member has to catch a couple of waves, leave the water, tag their partner, and that person jams out, and he needs to catch a couple of waves.
One of the waves is a double whammy.
Huh?
That’s where you have a designated surfer, usually the best guy on the team, throw both his arms up in the air.
Cool. Like flapping like a bird?
Well, that signals to the judges that you want that wave to be scored double points--the double whammy.
Last year, Team Focus won, and that was like a dream team put together a week before the event that had Kelly Slater, Rob Machado, Conan Hayes and Shane Dorian.
Slater--surfing’s answer to Michael Jordan--won the team and individual titles at the Katin last year and then went on to become world champion. Although it’s a local contest, spectators might see some world-class surfing.
Yup. It depends on what big-name guns happen to be around town who could win it.
Katin trunks, the famous surf britches, are still sold from a surf shop in Surfside, south of Seal Beach. And Glenn Hughes, 35, the store manager, is handling the business end of things.
How Hughes and his mother, Sato, 66, got the business is a story in itself.
Walter and Nancy Katin hired Sato as a seamstress in 1961 to work in the back of the shop making surf trunks. They grew close. For a time, Glenn and his mother lived with the Katins aboard their boat, the Southern Seas.
Walter Katin died in 1967. Although the Katin contests were no longer held, Nancy Katin continued to run the business, which had switched from making sails to making surf-wear.
In 1977, she reintroduced the contest as a pro/am but changed the name to the Katin Team Challenge. For a while, it was known as the Underdog Contest.
In February, 1986, Nancy Katin died. She left the shop to Sato Hughes.
*
The Bud: The U.S. Bud Tour rolls into Southern California on Tuesday to April 30 at Seaside Reef in Cardiff, in northern San Diego County.
*
The Bash: The second annual Earth Day Bash, sponsored by the Long Beach-North Orange County Surfrider Foundation chapter, will be Friday at 7 p.m. A portion of the $40 cost will go for chapter projects. That includes dinner and dancing to music by the Eliminators. It will be held at Sam’s Seafood Restaurant, 16278 Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach. (310) 438-6994.
*
The Bolsa Chica: The Long Beach-North Orange County Surfrider Foundation chapter also is sponsoring a party Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Long Beach Hyatt. Part of the $10 ticket goes to help save Bolsa Chica wetlands. Bands performing include Sunchild, Jack of None and China White.
