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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Wahine Classic adds tandem surfing

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An annual premier female surfing competition returns to Wrightsville Beach this weekend, and the 2015 rendition will introduce a new surfing discipline and feature the return of a light-hearted event designed to bring out smiles and laughs from the audience.

The Wrightsville Beach Wahine Classic on Aug. 15 and 16 will introduce tandem surfing to the competition, in which two surfers share the same board. The contest will also showcase the traditional events of longboarding, shortboarding and paddlesurfing, as well as crowd-favorite contests for the Teenie Wahines — girls aged 10 and younger. The competition occurs south of Crystal Pier both mornings.

Jo Pickett, who organized the two-day competition for wahines — or female surfers — with Indo Jax Surf School’s Jack Viorel, is introducing the tandem surfing division at the competitors’ request.

“The girls, at the beginning of summer, started asking me ‘Will you have a tandem?’” Pickett said. “I said ‘OK, if you all are going to practice, we’ll do it.’”

They practiced, Pickett said, paddling out at the contest site on large foam boards or paddleboards. One pair, 12-year-olds Reece Blue and Saylor Emmart, used a swell the week before the contest to put in final preparation.

Around mid-morning, the girls waded through the surf, pushing a 9-foot foam board through the breakers. When a small swell swept toward them, the girls lay on the board and started paddling, Emmart in front and Blue behind. As the wave pushed them forward, Emmart jumped to her feet first and Blue followed.

“We’ve tried it different ways to see who’s better in the front or back,” Blue said. “We’ll hold hands, and we can turn around.”

Picket said she is resurrecting the Man-hine division this year, also at the competitors’ request.

“I’m bending under pressure and agreeing to do it,” she said, adding, “It’s all about the costumes.”

Cameron Paul, a local wahine who is both competing in and helping organize the 2015 contest, confirmed the Man-hine division would involve a lot of men in women’s swimsuits.

“It’s just kind of an expression session, to give the judges a break and break up any tension in the crowd,” she said. “[It] gets people laughing … and there are some guys that are all about it, they’re ready to bring out their bikinis.”

The girls are also competing in both the amateur shortboard and longboard divisions, which are split into age groups. For the first time, Pickett said she is allowing young girls to surf in older age groups.

“I’ve got a setup where I can double beach as many heats as I need to,” she said, “and the girls want to surf as much as they can, so I’m going to do it.”

The pro longboard and shortboard divisions will likely draw some of the best surfers in the region, including local standouts Misty Mangiacapre, Kat Neff and Karson Lewis, Paul said. But the supportive, community atmosphere of the Wahine Classic might inspire girls who would not otherwise enter a pro division to give it a try.

“There’s a big pool of girls who will do the pro just at the Wahine,” Paul said. “I think it’s less intimidating because you’re going out there with your friends.”

To register for the Wahine Classic, visit www.crystalsouth
surfcamp.com

email [email protected]

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