Surfin’ Safari

Anyone who knows an avid surfer knows rabid would be a better adjective.

Who else would crawl out of bed before sunup on a Sunday morning for the right to fight 50 other dawn-patrol types for twilight’s first waves?

Who else would risk bandits and crooked police alike while driving hundreds of miles through Baja wasteland on some of the world’s worst roads to camp in a “secret spot” that is never really a secret and in all likelihood will produce only small, blown-out waves?

And who else would relish spending 16 days bobbing around the Indian Ocean, battling discomfort, disease, sharks, sea snakes, razor-sharp coral reefs--even the threat of new-millennium pirates, for gosh sakes--in search of perfect waves?

Well, John Vance is certainly pumped . . . full of serum, anyway. He just received a boatload of injections to help him ward off nasty side effects such as hepatitis, typhoid, malaria and diphtheria, to name a few.

Vance, vice president of sales and marketing for Irvine’s Ocean Pacific Apparel Corp., is really just going along for the ride on this ultimate surf safari. He’ll have his surfboard, of course, but he won’t be one of the hard chargers tearing up the tubes in the Mentawai Islands off the southwest coast of Sumatra in Indonesia over the next few weeks.

Six of the best male and four of the top female surfers in the world will be competing in the 2000 Op Pro Boat Trip Challenge June 5-20. Reigning world champion Mark Occhilupo (Australia), current No. 1 Sunny Garcia (Hawaii), three-time world champion Tom Curren (Santa Barbara), San Clemente’s Shane Beschen, Oxnard’s Tim Curran and Hawaii’s Bruce Irons will vie for the $65,000 winner-take-all prize, the most ever offered for winning a surf contest.

Two-time world champion Layne Beachley (Australia), countrywoman Serena Brooke and Hawaii’s Rochelle Ballard and Megan Abubo will compete for $35,000, the largest women’s purse ever. Each male competitor will receive a $5,000 appearance fee, which is equivalent to losing in the semifinals of a regular World Championship Tour event. The women will get $3,000 each, the same as a second-place finish in a WCT contest.

Warming Trend

Vance, 48, sounds as if he’d put up the money himself just for the chance to go along.

“I’m absolutely thrilled,” he said. “I’ve been surfing since 1965 and this is every surfer’s dream. Being able to jump off a boat into 75-degree water, which just seems to make everything bend and flex a little better at my age, and then to be in perfect waves with just a few friends where you can pick and choose any wave you want.

“How much would some guy be willing to pay if he could have Malibu to himself for a day? And this is probably the richest area for surf in the world. They say that every time the boat rounds a point, there’s another perfect wave breaking.”

Even the pros, who spend a lot of time carving up the world’s best waves with only one other competitor in the water, are unabashedly stoked.

“I went there twice last year for photo shoots and it is incredible,” said Beschen, who’s No. 10 in the Assn. of Surfing Professionals’ WCT rankings. “I might do it differently than have one guy take all the money with so many awesome surfers there, but aside from the money, just to be able to surf there is worth it. The waves are so rippable.”

Vagabond Australian surfers discovered the region’s remote breaks in the 1980s. Large swells generated near Antarctica travel thousands of miles until they spill onto the coral reefs fringing the islands, creating a variety of flawless breaks. The area became a Mecca of sorts for surfers in the ‘90s after being featured in magazines and surf videos.

The event’s unique floating format--competitors will stay the entire time on boats--allows the fleet to move from spot to spot in search of perfect waves.

Apparently, finding them isn’t a difficult task. The only problem is discerning the wind direction and heading off to the right break, which boat-trip veteran skipper Martin Daley reportedly does as well as anyone on earth.

“Ever since Op started sponsoring events in 1982, we’ve always been looking to take the surfing contest to another level,” Vance said. “When you’re stuck at one spot, you’re at the whim of Mother Nature. Look at last year’s [WCT event] at Huntington [Beach pier]. The finals were held in one-foot slop. That just doesn’t generate much excitement. But that’s the way stationary contests are. This way, we can bring out the best in these superb athletes and there’s no excuses about conditions.”

The event will be contested in four different breaks--hollow lefts and rights and performance lefts and rights--to give both goofy-footers (right foot forward) and regular-footed surfers equal opportunity to face the wave. All the women surf with their left foot forward, so the women’s competition will be held in two right-hand breaks.

Risky Business

Unlike the usual head-to-head heats in the WCT, all the surfers will be in the water at the same time and the heats will last two hours with the top five waves scored. Judges, including pro surfer Chris Malloy, ASP judge Perry Hatchett and four-time world champion Mark Richards, will reward high-risk maneuvers to encourage aerials and other big, quality moves as opposed to giving out high scores for simply making a lot of snap turns and cutbacks.

Beschen, who for years has been campaigning for the ASP to revamp its scoring to reward risk rather than routine, was pleasantly surprised when informed of the revolutionary approach to judging.

“Pro surfers judging? What an idea,” Beschen said, laughing. “That’s what the ASP needs, pro surfers judging.”

Organizers have stolen an idea from the Tour de France. All competitors will wear the same color jersey each day--it makes them easier to recognize in an upcoming television special set to air Aug. 5 at 11 a.m. on USA Network--except the leader, who will wear yellow.

“It adds drama for the show and I think it puts a little pressure on the leader to push himself,” Vance said. “He’s the target.”

Hopefully, the fleet won’t become a target for Indonesian pirates, who’ve taken to mounting 50-caliber machine guns on souped-up craft and strafing luxury cruisers before boarding, robbing the crew and speeding away.

“Most of that stuff happens a couple hundred miles away on the other side of Indonesia,” Vance said, noting, however, that the prize money will be wired into the winners’ accounts. “We’re not taking any blank cashier’s checks with us.”

Vance also plans to keep his eye out for swimming snakes and sharks that might mistake him for a seal, but things below or beyond the waves seldom deter Beschen and his peers.

Corey Lopez, who splits time between San Clemente and Florida and is currently ranked No. 7, was an alternate who won’t be needed. He wasn’t wishing an injury on any of his buddies, but . . .

“The guys who get to go are really lucky,” he said. “It’s pretty insane there. I was there for 14 days last year and it was overhead every day. The waves are so good and it’s so warm, you’re in the lineup like 10 hours a day. The only things you do on the boat are sleep and eat. The waves are really playful. It’s expression-session surfing.”

Notice that Lopez never mentioned the appearance fee or the first-place prize when he spoke of the fortunate ones who will be on board.

“I’m certainly not going to go in thinking about the money,” Beschen said. “This is awesome experimentation surf, a chance to improve and surf with the best surfers in the world. This is a freedom-type trip for me.

“The experiences you have like this are so much more valuable than money.”

True . . . but he provided event organizers with a bank account number just in case.

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Catching a Break

A winner-takes-all surf contest is set for June 5-20, wherever the waves are best along the coast of Sumatra. The 10 surfers--six men, including two from Orange County, and four women--will be judged on the difficulty of their maneuvers.

A look at the competition:

MEN

Mark Occhilupo, 33, Australia

Tom Curren, 35, San Clemente

Shane Beschen, 28, Laguna Niguel

Tim Curran, 22, Oxnard

Bruce Irons, 20, Hawaii

Sunny Garcia, 31, Hawaii

Cory Lopez, 23, Florida (alternate)

*

WOMEN

Rochelle Ballard, 29, Hawaii

Layne Beachley, 27, Australia

Serena Brooke, 24, Australia

Megan Abubo, 22, Hawaii