Santa Cruz Boardriders Club

Growing up as a competitive surfer in Santa Cruz during the 90’s was an amazing experience. It was a time when Santa Cruz’s reputation as a hot-bed of progressive surfing was skyrocketing, thanks to the explosive acts of local pros such as Shawn “Barney” Barron, Pete Mel, Daryl “Flea” Virotsko, and Adam Replogle, just to scratch the surface. This public profile, along with the booming state of the surf industry, justified large contracts for these boundary-pushing athletes, and, in turn, led to a trickle down effect where enterprising grommets such as myself could attain multiple sponsorships. 

While my contracts lacked the financial incentives of my elders, I could constantly count on receiving countless boxes of free clothing, wetsuits, shoes, accessories, shades, and even surfboards. At one point, I even had a sunblock sponsor!

One of my contractual obligations was to compete in surf competitions. This meant traveling to Southern California at least once a month to compete against kids from all over California. While the events were fun, the surf on tap was usually meager and gutless, putting the wave-rich Santa Cruz surfers at a serious disadvantage. During this time, the events I really looked forward to were the local events, where often than not, we could count on highly contestable surf to really show what we were made of.

Some memorable events for myself included the “Yeah Now No Cord Reunion,” and the B4 Halloween Leashless event, both held at Pleasure Point in phenomenal conditions. Above all, the local events I looked forward to the most were the Volcom Pro-Am events, where surfers from all sides of town would battle it out for cold-hard cash, not to mention bragging rights. What made these events so special were that they had the ability to bring Santa Cruz surfers from all sides of town together as a cohesive group. Unfortunately, at some point in the 00’s, Volcom put the highly popular, free to event contest series to rest.

Many years went by, and while there have been a handful of memorable local events since then, Santa Cruz surfers still lacked an ongoing competition circuit. That all changed seven years ago with the formation of the Santa Cruz Boardriders Club, a member-only organization that organizes events throughout the year where anyone who wants to be involved can pay a fee, giving them the chance to compete, join a community, partake in team meetings and fundraisers, as well as some exclusive Boardriders swag. Clubs like this have been around for decades in Australia, and since its introduction to the United States, has become extremely popular.

What’s unique about the Boardriders Club is that they break the teams down by age: 14-under, 15-19, 20-30, 30-40, 50-up, and women’s. The reasoning for this is that the sanctioned regional events, as well as the national finals, operate on a tag-team level. That means  every age division has a 40 minute window for four surfers in each division to attain their single-best score, ideally in the least amount of time possible in order to the other teammates a chance to contribute to the total score. Each division surfs, and when all is said and done, the team with the highest score is deemed the winner.

There are a handful of regional West Coast Boardriders events to determine which teams will earn the right to compete at the National “Wheat Cup” Championships, so to qualify as one of the four surfers in one’s respective division, surfers must duke it out in local trial events held beforehand. Instead of just cherry-picking the top surfers for each division, these trials give everyone a chance to represent the team—from the underground weekend warrior to the grizzled pro. Once a year, the West Coast Boardriders send their top performing teams to Australia to compete against clubs from all over the world in the World Club Challenge. This year, up-and-coming rippers Stryder Stelck, Keanna Miller, Jackson Taylor, and James Daniels were selected to represent Santa Cruz and put up a valiant performance, placing 21st in a field of 48 clubs!

In years passed, I’d taken a laissez faire approach to these trials. This year, however, I got serious. The first two events I qualified to represent the Santa Cruz Boardriders Club at the regional events at both Morro Bay and Ventura. Unfortunately, both times I was unable to participate due to a nagging back injury. At the final event at the Hook two weekends ago, I had a strong performance, but failed to qualify.

Even though I never had the chance to compete alongside my Santa Cruz surf family as a representative of our local Boardriders Club, being a part of this organization and competing in the local trials they sanction has brought me back to the days where local surfers, who typically stay put on their side of town come together to shred, heckle, and bond as a whole. Surfing is usually such a selfish pursuit, so it’s nice to know that we have regular events again that showcase the excitement and camaraderie of competitive surfing as a team sport.