Nelscott Reef Contest

Oregon coast locals inspired by competing against surfing legends
Published: December 20, 2005
By JOSH KULLA
The News Guard
One high-profile surf contest can go a long way toward garnering attention for surfers who have previously been anonymous to the rest of the world.
Such is the case both for longtime Lincoln City surfer Jason Garding and the now-famous Nelscott Reef. Garding, 32, began surfing the frigid waters of the Pacific Ocean in the mid-1980s, and such are the prevalent conditions along the coast - water temperatures in the mid-50s, stormy for much of the year, and the possibility of running into a white shark - that he says the number of dedicated surfers remaining at the coast has actually dwindled at the same time surfing has exploded in popularity around the world.
"There are a lot of fair-weather surfers in Oregon," Garding said last week. "Surfing has picked up in Oregon, but only at the beginner level. The number of hardcore locals has died off a bit."
And after the success of last week's first-ever tow-in surf contest at Nelscott Reef, one might expect that would change. But Garding and other locals don't necessarily think this will transpire.
"I don't think it will do anything with the crowds," Garding said. "As far as some locals thinking it's going to get crowded, well, go down and look at Canyons (a local surf spot near the Nelscott reef); there's no one out there."
Perhaps the fabled harshness of the Oregon coast will, in fact, deter the hordes from descending on Lincoln City and other Oregon locales. But for Garding and local surfers Keith Galbraith and Mark Builder, there is no going back following the success of the state's first professional surf contest. This is particularly the case with Garding, who would have finished eighth out of 30 surfers had each surfer been judged individually. Sponsored by Russo Surfboards and Valley Surf, Skate and Snow, of McMinnville, Garding stood out among a field of some of the world's best big-wave surfers, in part because of his local knowledge of the reef, but also because he is simply that good.
But you wouldn't know it from talking to him. Instead, like many other surfing professionals, he lets others gush forth with the accolades.
"Jason got eighth out of a field of 30 and that's frickin' unbelievable," said Roland Hoyle of Behemoth LLC, the driving force behind this year's event. "Some of the top guys in the world were there. Keith and Mark both did very well, also, they held their own for sure. They proved the locals, in fact, did belong in the contest. That was a big concern we had before, so we were really stoked that the locals did as well as they did."
For his part, Garding played up virtually all aspects of the contest during an interview last week - except his own performance. Far from boasting, he, instead, chose to focus on the importance of teamwork when it comes to tow surfing, as well as the camaraderie which was present in spades at Nelscott Reef.
"I pretty much got the butterflies out on Saturday," he said. "Don Curry (his partner for the contest) and I stayed out until sunset that day. I wiped out on the first wave and took a 15- to 20-footer on the head. But after that, we really started hooking up. Don's a really mellow guy, like me, so it really worked out well."
He added that instead of an ultra-competitive contest, the inaugural Nelscott Reef event seemed more like a friendly, free-surfing session.
"All these guys are so humble, all they really want to do is surf," he said of surfing legends such as Jeff Clark, Richard Schmidt, Peter Mel and others who have earned the lasting respect of their peers at such big-wave spots as Mavericks, near Half-Moon Bay in California, Ghost Trees, near Pebble Beach, and Todos Santos, found off the coast of Mexico.
"In the mid- to late-80s, I had only surfed for a few years, and Richard Schmidt was the guy," Garding added. "He was the best big-wave surfer from the U.S., and he was the one guy who could hold is own in Hawaii."
As for teamwork, it is paramount when surfers are towed into a wave. Not only is communication difficult given the noise and distance separating the driver and surfer, the timing has to be just right in order to catch the wave properly. Go too early and the wave will break behind - or directly on top of - the surfer. And if you get a late start, you will either miss the wave altogether or get swept "over the falls" and into a churning froth of whitewater.
What it comes down to, Garding said, is one simply has to quit thinking and let the body take over.
"When I first looked down at a solid 25-foot wall of water I didn't let go of the rope," he said. "And then I told myself ‘you're just going to have to shut your brain off.'"
Organizer Jim Kusz, who was responsible for making arrangements with North Lincoln Fire and Rescue and K38, a California company specializing in water rescue instruction, agreed the close-knit big-wave surfing community is far more responsible when it comes to safety procedures than the general surfing public. This, he noted, is partly due to the inherently dangerous nature of surfing waves with faces 30 feet or more in height. But it also comes from the uniquely intense nature of their sport, where one miscue can result in a surfer's death.
"It was really a group effort," Kusz said of the contest as a whole. "These guys aren't out beating each other. They watch out for each other. It's a real tight-knit community, and there are a lot of lessons to be learned from watching these guys compete."
Contest founder John Forse, who first "discovered" the wave at Nelscott Reef a decade ago, said the wave itself is at least partly responsible for the safety aspect, existing as it does in relatively deep water, where surfers who wipe out are in little danger of striking rocks or other potentially lethal obstructions.
"We had relatively smooth faces on the waves, and the reef is responsible for a lot of that," he said of the day of the contest.
Several days after the contest was over, the adrenaline rush of both the contest and the media coverage had yet to wear off for Garding.
"The whole thing was just incredible," he said. "The last few days have been kind of surreal. I think I just need to take the girls (daughters Marley and Madison) down to Otter Rock and get back into it."