San Clemente, CA, -- The 6.0 Lowers Pro wrapped over the weekend at Lower Trestles, with Hawaii's Fred Patacchia, 28, taking out defending champion Ben Bourgeois, 30, of North Carolina, in glassy 4-foot walls. For Patacchia, this 6-star PRIME WQS event served as a nice exercise. Though the ASP World Tour star has very little need to surf qualifying events this year (he's in little danger of missing the world tour cut in his current number four position) Patacchia took the opportunity of a break in his schedule to sharpen his blade in preparation for The Hurley Pro, the ASP's only stop in Mainland U.S., which takes place right back here at Trestles in September. "It's a good warm up," says Patacchia. "I just want to stay in contest mode. I'm having a fairly decent year this year so I just want to keep it going."

For Bourgeois, who fell off the ASP World Tour last year, this was a solid step back to the big leagues should he decide he wants that. But the 30-year-old California transplant is busy working on a handful of other surf related projects this year, and getting back to the top, while certainly tempting, doesn't seem to be his first priority. "I'm doing a boat trip to Panama later this year, and just cruising at home in Carlsbad."

So the real drama at Lowers was down in the trenches of the WQS rankings, among those trying to break through for the first time to the next level. There were a number of Americans hoping to make the most of the huge points on offer at this 6-star PRIME event.

Dusty Payne entered Lowers in the number 16 slot' The young
Hawiian is hoping to stay on the incredible roll he's been enjoying ever since
taking out last year' s Oakley Pro Junior Global Challenge in Bali.

Nate Yeomans, one of San Clemente's native sons, entered the Lower's event ranked 21, while Dane and Tanner Gudauskas, two more San Clemente standouts, entered ranked 33^rd and 35^th respectively.

Yeomans has been enjoying plenty of success in WQS events of late. He became the first WQS surfer ever to threepeat at last year's Oakley Newport Pro. But unfortunately, none of those wins netted Yeamans many points, since they were only 2-Star events. He earned just 500 points for each of those 2-Star victories. In 6-Star PRIME events surfers who finish = 97th earn 525 points. That illustrates just how important these events are, and why Americans have been begging for an event of this weight on mainland shores for years. This was the first ever 6-Star PRIME event in California.

"It's about time," says Bourgeois, last year's winner. "I'm really stoked Nike stepped in and turned this into an event that really matters this year. This is one of the best venues you can possibly have for a contest, so it should be."

Another U.S. hopeful looking for a solid result was Brett Simpson of Huntington Beach. Simpson narrowly missed the world tour cutoff last year, something he's desperately trying to avoid this season. Entering the event ranked 4th on the WQS, it was so far so good. But Simpson had the unfortunate luck of running into super freaks Dane Reynolds and Rob Machado in Round of 48. Though his = 37th finish was a setback, the results on the rankings don't reflect it yet. He remains in the Top 5 for now, but the foundation he'd built up has weakened.

Tanner Gudauskas and Dusty Payne, on the other hand, capitalized. Both advance all the way to the quarterfinals before being eliminated by world tour stars Tim Boal and Patacchia respectively. Gudauskas now finds himself rounding out the Top 10 on the WQS, while Payne is clawing even higher, all the way to number 7 in the rankings.

Of course, Yeomans performance was the real justice served at Lowers. By beating stalwarts like Rob Machado and C.J. Hobgood en route to his semifinals appearance, he delivered when he had to. His equal 3rd place finish netted him 2625 points, rocketing him all the way into the number 6 slot on the WQS rankings.

Post Lowers Pro, there are now three Americans in the Top 10, with Patrick Gudauskas and Austin Ware playing back up to them in the Top 20. While the season ahead is long, the American hopefuls can (and should) be content with their defense of the home front. Consider this battle won.

Things got interesting at the Nike 6.0 Lowers Pro today, as the field of top surfers was reduced from 48 to 8 in the biggest World Qualifying Series (WQS) event to ever hit Mainland U.S. shores. Even while conditions deteriorated amidst the onset of a small storm hitting Southern California, the surfers kept things hot. Several interesting showdowns took place today, with a couple resulting in big upsets.
The biggest upset was local boy Nate Yeomans, a diehard WQS competitor, taking out ASP World Tour star Dane Reynolds in the Round of 16. Yeomans has been tearing up WQS events on the U.S. Mainland for years, but unfortunately none of his victories carried a whole lot of weight in the ratings department, as they were always the 2-Star and 3-Star variety. With Lowers being a 6-Star Prime this year, the highest weight on the WQS scale, this result will play a significant role in Yeomans' 2009 campaign to qualify. Going into this event he was rated 21st on the WQS.

Another upset was Hawaii's Dusty Payne, who took down Chris Ward, another local boy who is also an ASP World Tour veteran.


Another local boy doing well is Tanner Gudauskas, who defeated Australia's Jay Thompson and advanced onto the quarterfinals. The final heat of the round C.J. Hobgood continued his tear, taking out Rob Machado, who up until that point, looked like a major threat to take out the event.

The quarterfinals have now taken shape, with some stellar duels on tap for Saturday.

Quarterfinal 1: Fred Pattacchia (HAW) vs. Dusty Payne (HAW)
Quarterfinal 2: Tim Boal (FRA) vs. Tanner Gudauskas (USA)
Quarterfinal 3: Adriano De Souza (BRA) vs. Ben Bourgeois (USA)
Quarterfinal 4: Nathan Yeomans (USA) vs. C.J. Hobgood (USA)

Lower Trestles is sacred ground for surfers. The wave itself is one of the best in the world for highlighting state of the art high performance surfing. That's why victories here, at any level, carry a significant degree of prestige. While Lowers plays host to a variety of surfing tournaments each year: the NSSA National Titles, a World Qualifying Series (WQS) event and an full blown ASP World Tour stop that brings the world title race into play.
In years past, the WQS event has been the least publicized of the three. That's due mainly to the fact that it didn't carry a whole lot of weight in the overall meaning of things. The WQS, which is surfing's version of the minor leagues, is comprised of hundreds and hundreds of surfers all vying for a shot at making the cut for the ASP World Tour. But unlike Minor League Baseball, where players are broken into segregated leagues, like Single- A, Double-A and Triple-A, in surfing the climb is a bit more complicated. Surfers with enough points can enter any contest they wish on the WQS schedule, which is comprised of roughly 40 events. Those events are broken into a tier system, ranked from 1-Star, which have very little points and prize money, all the way to 6-Star PRIME, which provide top dollars and enough points that they are basically can't miss events for any surfer hoping to make a serious run at the ASP World Tour.

6-Star PRIME events are rare birds indeed. There are only eight in 2009. And the only one on the U.S. Mainland, the 6.0 Lowers Pro, is underway this week at Trestles. Because 6-Star PRIME events are so important, several of the surfers who enter are ASP World Tour surfers aiming to protect their coveted spots by requalifying through the WQS again just in case they don't make the big league cutoff.

So how do the surfers feel about having such an important event at Lowers now?

"It's about time," says Ben Bourgeois, last year's winner. "This is by far the best wave in California for a surf contest, so it's nice to have something on the WQS level that really matters. I think we're going to see a lot higher level this year."

If the first few days of action are any indication, Bourgeois is right.

As if falling out of a plane several thousand feet above the ground isn't enough of a rush, 44 year old Russian Skydiver Valery Rozov decided to jump into an active Volcano last weekend. Rozov strapped on his wingsuit and jumped out of a helicopter in to the active Mutnovsky Volcano on Russia's Kamachatka Peninsula. But the really crazy part was in order to maximize the thrill he waited until he'd fallen inside the crater before pulling his parachute. Highlighting his pinpoint accuracy, Rozov landed on a sheet of ice in the middle of the simmering crater.

Would-Be Rivals Take Top Honors at The Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards

By Chris Mauro

Rivalries are nothing new in surfing. The pursuit of the perfect wave is, after all, a hot war being fought over a precious natural resource. It takes a perfect storm and a broad swath of ocean to give life to these beasts. That's why average big-wave surf break is ridden only a handful of times each year. Traditionally, when legendary swells arrive the keepers of local surfing lore crawl out of their holes to take note of who did what. Those who charge with reckless abandon are lifted onto pedestals, declared clinically insane or both if they put on a really good show.

Each corner of the world produces its own big-wave idols, yet until the advent of the Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards a decade ago these distant cousins rarely, if ever, met. Today, the affair brings this community of like-minded freaks together. For one night each year, regional stars and global rivals now gather under one roof to celebrate the year's biggest and most terrifying accomplishments in big-wave surfing. It makes for an interesting evening since this community is famously comprised of alpha males with elephant size egos who enjoy nothing more than talking smack about their counterparts.


Greg Long and Grant "Twiggy" Baker, two of the most dominant players in the big-wave game these days, don't fit that mold. Both surfers have charming' "even disarming personalities. They also maintain a healthy respect for each other. So it's more than a little strange that both were big winners at this year's XXL proceedings last Friday night in Anaheim. Long, 26, of San Clemente, California, took "Ride of the Year" honors worth $50,000, while Baker, 35, of Umhlanga, South Africa, nabbed the esteemed "Biggest Wave and best "Overall Performance" categories.

That they dominated this year's awards was hardly a surprise though. Over the past couple of years they've each been on a tear in the big stuff. Both have won the prestigious Maverick's surf contest in Half Moon Bay, California, as well as the Red Bull Big Wave Africa competition held at a shark infested break called Dungeons, just outside of Cape Town. What' s interesting about their individual achievements is that they're undoubtedly a result of their partnership as a tow-in team when things get truly oversized. This duo has rapidly become one of the most prolific teams in big wave history.

In years past the would-be rivals would likely be at each other's throats, if they were communicating at all. Instead, the bond between them is emblematic of a huge shift in the nature of this once very selfish, lone wolf pursuit. Surfers used to build their big-wave reputations alone, forming relationships with the nearest big wave break and doing their best to own it whenever the waves turned on. Yet that paradigm was rocked in the mid 90s with the advent of tow-in surfing.

When personal Wave Runners were abruptly thrown into the big-wave arena, breaks previously thought impossible to ride were suddenly ripe for the plucking. Now when swells get truly massive surfers grab hold of ropes attached to personal water craft and get whipped into the very danger zone that they can't breach under paddle power alone. Old barriers of big wave riding are consistently being shattered as a result. Whereas 25 to 30-foot waves were once considered the survivable ceiling, suddenly surfers are riding waves as big as 50, 60 and even 70 feet; they're also riding more compact, ferocious slabs that are thicker and more ugly than anything seen before. The Billabong XXL Awards Show was born as a result of all this, and in part, to see if this new era could lead to the first ever100-foot wave attempt.

To date, the record for the world's biggest ride is held by Mike Parsons, who, at age 43, rode a 70-foot wave at Cortes Bank in January of 2008. This fickle big-wave spot was once only known as the most treacherous nautical hazard off the Southern California coast, sitting 100 miles out in the middle of the ocean. Cortes Bank, it is widely believed, is the place most likely to produce the hallowed 100-foot wave due to its exposure and scalability. Yet it will likely take an El Nino winter storm to make it happen. The last El Nino winter was in 1998, three years before any serious attempts at Cortes were underway. Parsons won the first XXL Award there in 2001, and repeated last year, breaking his old record. Both times he was towed-in by Brad Gerlach, a bitter rival from his earlier days as a pro surfer, who has since become his best friend.

The relationship between Long and Baker started off as a competitive one, too. "We met at a big wave contest down in Africa," says Long. ' Most of the other guys were getting lazy during the three-week waiting period, but Grant was up before dawn every day checking the conditions; we both were. After bumping into each other a few times super early in the morning we started looking for waves together' and we haven't stopped since.'

Despite the fact that these two live on opposite sides of the world, the pairing has been remarkably successful when it comes to chasing down the big swells. "We live off of the weather models," says Baker. "I'm always watching storms in the Southern Hemisphere, while Greg has the whole Northern half of the globe covered. When we see something cooking on the maps we determine where we need to be do all it takes to get there." The past 12 months were relatively quiet in the Northern Hemisphere relative to previous years, which means they spent a lot of time in the Southern Hemisphere, which produced a good chunk of this year's most spectacular rides. Tasmania, Tahiti and Chile were a few of the prominent players, but Long and Baker both caught their winning rides in South Africa.

"Those guys deserve everything they're getting right now," says Parsons, who knows what it takes to be a tireless swell chaser with 15-years of big game hunting under his belt. "I don't see anyone else out there with the dedication level they have. If somebody is going to break the 100-foot mark the smart money is on those guys. Because when it's that big it's not a solo act. It's a team effort."